Fluke bite builds on Long Island as Montauk stripers ease off

What's biting

What's next

With a New Moon on tap, expect the stronger tide swings that typically get inshore predators moving during the day-and-night current changes bracketing the new moon. Saltwater Edge's July New Moon forecast, written for southern New England, calls this stretch of mid-July the "summer doldrums": hot, often windy conditions that can slow the bite compared to the spring push, though there's still plenty to target if you fish around the moving water. That regional read lines up with what On The Water is already seeing on the Island: the Montauk striper bite that carried through late June and the July 2 report is cooling as fish settle into their summer pattern, pushing bass toward deeper, cooler structure rather than the surface blitzes of spring.

Fluke should keep building over the next few days. The July 9 report already had keeper-quality fish showing in better numbers from the South Shore reefs and bays into Long Island Sound, and that trend typically holds or improves through mid-July as fish finish moving onto summer structure. Anglers working bucktails tipped with Gulp or fresh strips, or the 3-way rigs detailed in On The Water's Long Island Sound piece, should find the window widening on the reefs and in the bays over the next couple days.

For stripers, don't write off the bite, just adjust the approach. OTW Surfcasting's coverage points to two active patterns worth carrying into this stretch: rigged Slug-Gos working shallow beaches with little visible structure, and live eels fished on inline circle hooks in the deeper rips. Both are built for the exact "fish are here but not blitzing" conditions a slowing Montauk bite typically produces. Bigger bass are also showing for anglers willing to go large with live bunker, eels, or glidebaits, per OTW Saltwater's kayak-tactics piece on trophy stripers.

Bluefish should stay mixed into the same rips as stripers on bucktails and jigs in Eastern Long Island Sound. With scup and summer flounder seasons open per NY DEC and no closures noted in the newsletter, weekend anglers have a full board to work. Plan around the moving tide stages rather than a specific clock time, since no local tide table came through with this update, and expect midday to lean slower and quieter than the New Moon's bracketing tide changes.

Context

Mid-July on Long Island and around Montauk typically marks the handoff point in the striped bass season: the concentrated spring and early-summer bite gives way to fish spreading into deeper, cooler water while anglers shift effort toward fluke, black sea bass, and bluefish for the rest of the summer. The pattern in this week's reports, an easing Montauk striper bite paired with improving fluke numbers, tracks that seasonal transition closely rather than reading as early or late.

There's a broader current running through the angler-intel feeds worth flagging: OTW Surfcasting has raised ongoing concern over striped bass spawning success in recent seasons, and NY DEC's own newsletter has run a "Fish Smart, Striped Bass" feature alongside enforcement news, including a recent case (covered by On The Water) of anglers ticketed for keeping over-slot bass and exceeding the daily limit. None of that changes what's biting today, but it's the backdrop for why regulators and shops alike keep pushing catch-and-release care on striped bass even during an active bite.

No buoy or gauge telemetry came through with this cycle, so there's no hard water-temperature trend to compare against past years for this update, only the qualitative signal from on-the-water reports. That's a gap worth closing with the next data pull rather than something to read into.