Outgoing tide at the inlet stays the money bite as bay warms and fluke scatter
A blown-through NE swell left its mark on the bay margins, but the inlet keeps delivering after dark — here's where the bass, weakfish, and fluke actually are this week.
Last week gave us a reminder that July doesn't mean the wind lays down and stays down. We had a NE blow push through mid-week — the kind that stacks a nasty short-period swell against the jetties and turns the surf line to chocolate milk. It backed off by the weekend, but not before it stirred the bay margins along Tiana and pushed some cooler, cleaner water back into the inlet on the bottom of the outgoing. That's actually done us a favor. The inlet current has been running clean and cold on the last two hours of the ebb, right when the bass want it, while the bay itself carries that stirred-up, slightly warmer top layer that's got the fluke moving around more than settling.
Moon's waning gibbous right now, sliding into last quarter around the 6th or 7th, which means tides are shrinking through the middle of this week before they start building again toward the new moon around the 14th. Practically, that's neap water midweek — less current push through the inlet, slacker exchange at the canal, and fish that stop chasing bait through the rip and start sitting in the eddies waiting for it to come to them. I fish differently on neap tides. Less covering water, more parking on structure and letting the tide do the work in short windows around the turn.
The inlet is still the story after dark. I've been running the outgoing from an hour before high right through the first two hours of the ebb, working the north jetty rocks and the deep scour hole on the ocean side. Bass to 34 inches have come on bunker chunks fished on a fish-finder rig with 4/0 circle hooks, dead-drifted right along the rock face where the current curls back on itself. If you're throwing plugs, a black Bomber Long A or a bone-colored Danny swimming plug worked slow through the seam between the fast water and the eddy has been drawing strikes right at the surface — that's a take you feel in your chest, not just your rod tip. Bluefish have been mixed in on the same tide, mostly cocktail-sized, chopping up anything that swims fast, so if you want clean bass without losing plugs to teeth, slow it down and stay tight to structure rather than working the open current lane.
Weakfish at Ponquogue Bridge have been a mixed bag — some nights good, some nights nothing, and that's the honest read right now. The bite's been happening in that narrow window around the bridge lights on the last of the outgoing, using small bucktails tipped with squid strips or 3-inch pink Gulp shrimp on a light jighead, bounced slow along the pilings in 12 to 15 feet. I put four keeper-class weakfish in the boat two nights ago working the shadow lines under the bridge, then got skunked the next night in almost identical conditions. That inconsistency tells me the fish are there in numbers but moving with the bait — probably shrimp and small bunker — rather than holding station. Worth the trip, but don't build a whole night around it without a backup plan.
Fluke in the bay have scattered some with the warmer surface water sitting on top after that blow. The consistent drift has been from the Cormorant Point flats down through the deeper cuts off Tiana in 8 to 14 feet, drifting white Gulp Swimming Mullets on 3/4-ounce bucktails tipped with a strip of squid. Fish are running smaller than a month ago — a lot of shorts mixed with occasional keepers to 4 pounds — which is typical for this stretch of summer as the bigger fish slide toward deeper, cooler structure near the inlet mouth itself. If you want a better shot at size, work the deeper edge right where the bay bottom drops off toward the inlet channel on the last two hours of the incoming, when clean ocean water is still pushing through and the fluke stack up to ambush bait getting swept off the flats.
The canal connection to the Peconic has been quiet for me this week, but it's early July — that bite usually picks up as water continues to warm and bait starts working through on the tide exchange. I'll be checking it again once we're past this neap stretch and the current strengthens back up.
Looking ahead: if the wind stays out of the south and southwest like the forecast suggests, I'd fish the inlet on the outgoing after 10 PM through this weekend — clean water, moving current, and bass that have shown they'll commit hard on chunk baits and swimming plugs worked slow. Midweek neap tides mean shorter, more precise windows rather than long grinding sessions, so I'm planning tighter trips around the tide change rather than fishing the whole ebb. For weakfish, I'd treat Ponquogue as a bonus stop on the way out or in rather than the main event until the pattern firms up. And once we swing back toward bigger water heading into the new moon next week, I expect the inlet current to strengthen and pull more bait — and bigger bass — back into range.