Fluke slide into the inlets as Great Bay water climbs past 78, dawn surf holds the bass and blues

Last week the bay did what it does every July — it got hot and slow at the same time. Great Bay and the upper Mullica have been sitting in the upper 70s, and by midweek some of the shallow flats off Graveling Point felt more like bathwater than striper water. That kind of heat pushes bait and predators alike out of the skinny stuff and into anything with current and depth — the channels, the inlets, the deeper bends of the ICW. We're coming off a weak, wandering tide cycle the last several days, nothing dramatic, current soft on both ends, which let that heat build up in the back bay instead of getting flushed. That's the story of the last seven days in one sentence: hot, slack, and shifting.

This week changes the math. We're running toward a new moon over the weekend, which means building spring tides — bigger swings, more water moving, current strengthening through both Barnegat Inlet and Little Egg Inlet as we head into July 11-13. That's the first real tidal push we've had since the full moon back in June, and it matters. Bigger tides mean cleaner exchange between the ocean and the back bay, which cools the edges of the channels even if the flats stay warm, and it concentrates bait — spearing, peanut bunker, grass shrimp — right where the current funnels it: the inlet throats, the tips of the jetties, the drop-offs off Holgate and the Rip at Little Egg. If you fish only one tide change all week, fish the building current on the new moon. That's when the structure starts working again.

Fluke are the honest headline right now, and they've done exactly what hot bay water makes them do — they've left the shallow bay grass and slid toward the channels, the inlets, and the ocean side. I've had better reports out of the Barnegat Inlet channel edges and the deeper cuts off Holgate than anywhere inside Great Bay this week. Best drifts have been 20 to 30 feet on the outgoing, working white and chartreuse Gulp Swimming Mullets on 3/4-ounce bucktails, dragged slow along the bottom contour where the channel breaks toward the flats. A few boats working the mouth of Little Egg Inlet on the last two hours of outgoing have found keeper-class fish mixed with a lot of shorts — you're sorting through fish, not filling a cooler, but the quality has been there for guys willing to grind the drift. The upwelled ocean water sitting just outside the inlets is running noticeably cooler than the bay, and that temperature break is exactly why the better fluke are stacking on the ocean side of the structure instead of staying inside.

Striped bass are a summer grind right now, no way around it. Daytime bay temps have most of them either deep or shut down, but the surf has quietly held a dawn window worth getting up for. Guys working Holgate and the Barnegat Light jetty complex at first light — before the sun gets on the water — have picked at schoolies and a few better fish on darters and bucktails worked slow along the rocks. Once the sun's up and the heat sets in, that bite closes fast. If you want stripers this week, you're a dawn angler, not an afternoon one.

Bluefish have filled in nicely on the same dawn shift. Cocktail blues to snapper size are showing consistently off Ship Bottom and Surf City on Ava jigs and Deadly Dicks worked through the wash, and a few better choppers have shown up mixed into bunker pods working just outside the surf line at Holgate. When you find the bunker balling up, that's your blue water — don't overthink the presentation, a bucktail or a metal jig ripped through the school will get bit.

Kingfish have been steady but not spectacular in the surf — bloodworms and Fishbites on high-low rigs working the sandy stretches at Beach Haven and Holgate, best on the incoming into high tide. Nothing to write home about size-wise, but it's a reliable bend in the rod if the bigger stuff isn't cooperating.

I have to be straight with you on black drum and weakfish. Drum season in Great Bay is basically closed out — the spring run pushed through in May and June, and what's left are stragglers on the channel edges taking clam baits, not worth planning a trip around. Weakfish are the tougher story. The bay's been warm enough for weeks now to theoretically hold them, and I know guys keep expecting a return, but the water temperature alone hasn't been the trigger people hoped for — same pattern we're seeing echoed out of Delaware Bay, where warm water sat there for over two weeks without producing. I'd stop treating 70-plus degree water as a promise and start treating it as one ingredient among several. Until someone actually puts a weakfish in the boat around here, I'm not sending anyone chasing them.

Looking ahead, the new moon springs building through the weekend are the thing to watch. If that current strengthens through Little Egg Inlet like it should, I'd be drifting the Rip and the channel edges off Holgate on the outgoing for fluke, and I'd be at Barnegat Light or Holgate at first light for the bass and blues before the heat shuts it down. Plan B if the fluke bite stays choppy — work the bucktail slower, drop a half-ounce lighter, and let the current do more of the work than your retrieve.