Fluke finish strong at Sandy Hook as the season winds down

What's biting

What's next

With summer flounder season closing September 25 per The Fisherman — New Jersey edition, this is a closing window, not a building one. Expect the next few days to keep producing on the same pattern Capt Ron's has been running: fish the drift hard through the tide change, since his best catches this week came right as the tide turned rather than on the open drift. The next low at Sandy Hook falls around 8:16 AM local Saturday, with the preceding high around 2:21 AM, so an early start into that overnight high and fishing through the morning low should line up with the change-of-tide bite Capt Ron's crew has been keying on.

Bluefish and false albacore should keep pushing the beaches through the weekend per OTW's Northern New Jersey report, and the first-quarter moon this week won't bring the extreme tidal swings a full or new moon would, so expect a fairly stable pattern rather than a sudden bite change. Sea bass should stay in the mix alongside fluke on the same structure through the season's final days. Anglers planning a last fluke trip should treat this coming week as the priority window before the closure, and shift attention to bluefish and blackfish as fluke effort winds down.

Context

A 74.7°F reading in mid-to-late September is consistent with the extended warm-water stretch several regional shops have flagged this month, keeping late-summer species like fluke and albies active later into the fall transition than is typical. Raritan Bay and Sandy Hook sit at the mouth of the bay system where fluke, sea bass and bluefish concentrate as summer flounder season closes and boats start shifting toward fall blackfish and the early stages of the striper run. This is the classic shoulder-season pivot for the region: one foot still in summer patterns, one foot easing toward the fall migration that typically builds through October.