New moon springs push Great South Bay fluke into the inlet — and the bass are starting to show at last light

New moon hit this week, and if you've run the bay the last few days you felt it before you saw it. Great South Bay pushed to 78.8 degrees — that's bathwater, and it's chased the fluke out of the flats and into anything with current and depth. Meanwhile the ocean side got a shot of upwelled water sitting around 71 degrees, and that ten-degree gap between bay and inlet is exactly why the fluke bite has flipped from a bay game to an inlet-and-channel game almost overnight. Add in new moon spring tides building through the weekend — bigger exchange, faster water, more push on both the flood and the drain — and you've got a week where position matters more than usual. Fish the wrong spot on the wrong stage of tide and you'll wonder where everybody went.

The springs peak right around Saturday into Monday, and that bigger tidal swing is also waking up the striper bite at last light. It's not the giant-class fish they're finding up around Block Island right now, but the pattern's the same logic — high water lining up with sunset gives the bass a reason to slide up onto structure and feed hard for that last hour before dark. I haven't seen it explode yet down here, but the ingredients are on the table: new moon push, warming water, baitfish getting squeezed out of the bay on the same tide that's pulling stripers up to meet them.

Fluke first, because that's where the numbers are. The shift out of the bay flats has piled fish into Fire Island Inlet itself, the deep bend off Democrat Point, and the pilings under the Robert Moses bridges — 25 to 35 feet, outgoing tide, no exceptions right now. White Gulp Swimming Mullets on 3/4-ounce bucktails, dragged slow along bottom, have been out-fishing bait two to one when the current's really moving, but once it slacks off, squid strip on a bucktail or a plain high-low rig with spearing gets the bite going again. I had a mixed bag Tuesday off the Captree side of the inlet — three keepers to 22 inches, a handful of shorts, one that pulled the rod down hard and turned out to be a bluefish that wanted no part of the fluke rig. That's honest fishing right now — not a slam, but steady if you're willing to move around and find where the current's stacking bait against structure. The channel edges off Nicoll Bay and the deeper cuts running out toward Patchogue are still holding some fluke too, mostly on the last two hours of the outgoing before the flats go dead calm and the fish lose interest.

Stripers are the story I'm watching most closely this week. The pattern setting up in the western Sound — high water timing right up against sunset on these new moon springs — is the same mechanics that should be waking up Fire Island Inlet and the Robert Moses surf. I fished Democrat Point at dusk Sunday into the top of the tide and had one solid hit on a bunker chunk that never connected, which tells me the fish are around but not stacked yet. If you want to chase this, I'd fish the last two hours of the incoming right into the first hour of the ebb, right at the point where the inlet current meets the surf line. Bunker chunks on a fish-finder rig, or if you see any bait getting nervous, a bunker spoon or a big darter worked through the wash. This window's only open a few days — Friday through Monday is your best shot before the tide relaxes off the springs and the bite reverts to that quieter neap pattern.

Bluefish have been scattered but present — mostly smaller choppers mixing into the fluke drift and occasionally busting bait on the surface off the Robert Moses ocean beaches early morning. Nothing worth a dedicated run yet, but if you're already out there working bucktails for fluke, keep a wire leader rigged because they'll cut you off otherwise.

Weakfish, I have to be straight with you — nothing. The bay's been above 70 for over two weeks now, which used to be the trigger everybody watched for, but that theory's dead this year. Warm water alone isn't bringing them back. I wouldn't burn a tide targeting them right now.

On the long-shot side, this is close to the last window for bonito and Spanish mackerel showing up on the ocean side of eastern Long Island inlets, and Fire Island Inlet on a clean incoming tide is worth a speculative look if you've got small metal jigs rigged and nothing better to do at first light. It's the kind of thing where you're not planning your whole day around it, but if you're already out there and see diving birds working bait near the sea buoy, it costs you nothing to make a few casts.

Porgies have been steady on the deeper structure around the Robert Moses bridges and out toward the reef pieces — clam and squid on high-low rigs, nothing flashy but reliable if you want dinner. Blackfish season's closed through the summer, so that's a fall conversation.

Looking ahead: if the spring tide keeps building through the weekend the way it's set up to, Friday through Monday sunset is where I'd put my time for stripers at the inlet, with fluke as the backup plan on the outgoing through midday. If the bass don't show by Monday, I wouldn't force it — go back to working the fluke pattern in the inlet channel, because that bite's been consistent even if it hasn't been a slam. Either way, fish the edges this week — bay to ocean, flood to ebb — because that's where the temperature break and the tide are doing the work for you.