New moon springs build in the Rips as fluke push to the inlets and weakfish stay a no-show

Last week the wind sat mostly out of the southwest, which is about the least helpful direction it can blow down here — it pushes warm water into the back bays and takes the edge off the current in the Rips right when you want it stacking bait against the reef. Delaware Bay's marsh creeks and the shallow flats behind Wildwood have been cooking all week, the kind of warm you can feel through your waders at the launch. That's pushed the fluke out of the skinny stuff and into anything with real current moving through it — the Cape May Canal, the inlet channels, the mouth of Hereford. Meanwhile out on the ocean side, upwelling has been doing us a favor, dragging cleaner, cooler water up onto the reef structure off the Point. That's the kind of temperature split — hot bay, cooler ocean edge — that tells you exactly where to point the bow this week.

This week the moon's going new on the 11th, and that means building springs through Friday into the weekend — bigger swings, more water moving, faster current in the Rips and at the mouth of the inlet. For us that's a double-edged thing. More current means better bait concentration on the structure, but it also means shorter, sharper windows — you've got about ninety minutes on either side of the tide change before it either goes too slack to hold fish or too ripping to fish comfortably. Wind looks manageable early week, southwest again but lighter, then a chance it swings more onshore by the weekend. If it does, expect some chop building against that new-moon current in the Rips — not dangerous, but it'll turn a clean drift into a washing machine by midday.

Fluke is the story right now, and it's a real one — not spectacular, but real. The shift out of the bay and into the inlets has been consistent for two weeks straight. Best water has been the outgoing at Hereford Inlet, working the channel edge in 18 to 25 feet with 4-inch white Gulp Swimming Mullets on 3/4-ounce bucktails, bounced slow along bottom, and dragging just enough to feel the head tick sand. The Cape May Canal on a strong outgoing has produced keepers to 4 pounds mixed with a lot of short fish, so bring the ruler and expect to cull. If you want bigger fish, fish the last two hours of the outgoing at the inlet mouth itself — that's where the bait gets funneled and the bigger fluke sit and wait, and a few 5- and 6-pound fish have come out of there on Berkley Gulp swimming mullet in chartreuse over the last ten days.

Bluefish have been the more reliable banger in the Rips proper — schoolie to mid-size tailor blues, mostly mid-morning through the top of the tide, busting bait on the surface enough that you can run and gun with a white Hopkins or a bucktail worked fast on top. Nothing huge, but steady, and it fills a cooler when the fluke are being stingy.

Striped bass, I'll be honest with you — it's been a grind. This is typical for July down here; the bulk of the resident fish have slid deep onto structure or pushed north, and what's left is mostly a night bite in the Rips itself, working live eels or bunker chunks on the bottom during the last two hours of the outgoing when the current's still got some push but isn't ripping your line sideways. A handful of guys have picked at 28- to 34-inch fish doing exactly that, but it's not a program you run in daylight right now and expect much.

Weakfish — I want to be straight with you here because I know a lot of you are still checking the bay temps hoping for a run. Delaware Bay water has been sitting above 70 degrees for over two weeks now, which on paper is the number that's supposed to trigger them. It hasn't. Zero real reports out of Fortescue or the mouth of the bay. Temperature alone isn't doing it this year — my guess is bait concentration and turbidity aren't lining up the way they need to, and until that changes I'd stop treating 70 degrees as a green light. If you're burning gas looking for weakfish right now, you're burning it on a hunch, not a pattern.

On a brighter note, the triggerfish bite is starting to build on the ocean reefs and wrecks off the Point as that warmer water settles in — small stuff so far, but worth a stop if you're anchored up for something else and want to drop a piece of clam or squid on a small hook down to the structure in 40 to 60 feet.

The drum run is done for the year — that window closed out in late May like it always does, and there's nothing left worth chasing in the bay on that front. If you're still hearing chatter about black drum this time of year, somebody's telling old stories.

Offshore, the docks have been busy — boats running out to the canyon edges are finding a real temperature break out on the shelf, and there's tuna talk on the VHF that's got the marina before sunrise. That's outside my lane species-wise, but it tells you the warm water pushing onto the shelf is legitimate, and it's part of why our inshore structure is holding better bait than it was a month ago.

For this week: if I had one trip, I'd fish the last two hours of the outgoing at Hereford Inlet Thursday or Friday morning before the new-moon current really cranks up, working bucktails tight to the channel edge for fluke, then swing over to the Rips at first light Saturday to see if the bass will show on eels before that spring tide gets too strong to fish clean. Have a backup plan for bluefish on top — they haven't let me down yet this month.