Bluefin Stay Red-Hot Off Montauk as Bass and Bonito Push In

What's biting

What's next

With inshore bluefin still red-hot off Montauk and yellowfin loaded up at the Coimbra grounds per Tight Lines Tackle in Southampton, the offshore window should hold through the week as long as sea conditions cooperate — bigeye are also being picked off in the canyons, and Double D Charters in Montauk notes bluefin are 'still available but becoming more challenging to locate consistently,' a sign the tuna bite is starting to thin as fall sets in.

Inshore, the story is the fall transition accelerating. Striped bass are the fish to watch: Double D Charters says a few are beginning to trickle into Montauk waters, White Water Outfitters in Hampton Bays reports more stripers showing as another sign the transition is underway, and Cow Harbor Bait and Tackle on the LI Surf circuit is already seeing schoolies up into slot-size fish working spearing and peanut bunker along the beaches during morning and evening windows. Expect that bass push to build through the coming weeks rather than days — this is the leading edge, not the peak.

Bonito, Spanish mackerel, and false albacore should keep filling in through the week. River Bay Outfitters in Baldwin says small bonito and Spanish mackerel are becoming more common along the Sound and East End, with false albacore starting to make their presence known — light-tackle and fly anglers should have small epoxy flies and baitfish patterns ready. On the South Shore, Laura Lee Fleet's excellent bonito and albacore run over the past several days suggests that action extends into the coming weekend.

Fluke fishing should stay mixed: ocean structure keeps producing quality fish (Bob's Bait and Tackle notes larger fish holding on the reefs) while bay fluke remains full of shorts, per LI Outdoorsman and Fishing East Coast Bait and Tackle. With the season's later stages approaching, work through numbers for a keeper rather than expecting a change in ratio.

The new moon this week means stronger tidal exchange — bigger swings and harder-running current, which tends to concentrate bait and predators around structure and inlets. That favors the night bluefish bite Fishfinder II called 'the best in a lot of years' on diamond jigs, and should sharpen the striper windows already building in North Shore harbors like Manhasset Bay and Northport, where live eels and swim shads have been producing after dark. Plan trips around the tide change rather than the clock this week.

Context

The timing here tracks close to typical for Long Island and Montauk in early September. On The Water — New York / Long Island's report from September 3 describes the classic late-summer-to-fall handoff: the midshore bluefin bite slowing while bonito and Spanish mackerel fill the gap ahead of albies, which is almost exactly the sequence playing out across this week's shop reports. That same outlet's August 27 report shows the bluefin slowdown was already underway two weeks ago, so the tuna fishery's gradual fade is on its normal late-summer schedule rather than arriving early or late.

Striped bass are the one storyline worth flagging as slightly ahead of the calendar in spots — Double D Charters in Montauk and White Water Outfitters in Hampton Bays are both already noting fish trickling in, and Cow Harbor Bait and Tackle has schoolies up into slot range on the LI Surf beaches. That's a normal September signal, not an early one, but it's a good reminder that the fall run builds gradually here rather than arriving as a single event.

The false albacore bite is the one lagging piece — The Fisherman (Northeast) noted the Cape run of albies was 'lagging way behind what we typically expect' before breaking loose at a Rhode Island breakwall, and Long Island's version is still in the 'starting to make their presence known' phase per River Bay Outfitters rather than in full swing. No angler intel source here offers a direct year-over-year comparison for Long Island specifically, so treat the 'on schedule' read as a seasonal pattern match rather than a confirmed statistic.