New moon springs load the Moriches throat as bay fluke bail out for cooler water

Last week the bay ran warm and slack for stretches, and that combination did exactly what you'd expect on a system like this — it pushed water quality problems into the channels and the inlet itself. Great South Bay pushed close to 79 degrees in the shallow flats off East Moriches and Mastic, and fluke don't sit still for that. They funnel. I watched it happen in real time working the drift from Tuthill Point down toward the Inlet — bay-side markers that were holding keeper fluke two weeks ago went dead quiet, while the deeper cuts near the Route 27 bridge and the throat of the inlet itself started producing. That's the bathymetry doing what it always does here: when the flats cook, the deep water becomes the only livable lane, and everything with fins uses it.

This week the moon is the story. We're building into new moon springs, with peak tidal range hitting Saturday through Monday, July 11-13. That's a big exchange through a narrow inlet — more volume, more velocity, more current lane definition at the throat between Cupsogue and the west end of Pattersquash. It also means the first real PM flood-sunset striper window we've seen since the June full moon. High water stacking up right around sunset on those big spring tides is the setup — bass push up onto the bar edges to feed as the light drops and the current eases off its peak push. If you've got one evening this weekend, that's the one to take.

Striped bass have been consistent, if not spectacular, working the inlet on the last two hours of the incoming and first hour of the outgoing. The pattern's been bunker chunks fished on a fish-finder rig, 2 to 3 ounces of lead depending on how hard the current's running, dropped right along the edge of the main channel where it drops from six feet to fourteen off the Cupsogue side. That drop-off is holding bait, and the bass are working it in waves rather than a steady pick — a flurry of three or four fish in twenty minutes, then nothing for an hour. Guys running eels after dark off the rock jetty at the inlet's ocean side have done better on quality — one report of a fish in the low thirties on a plain black eel, no weight, just a slow swim through the current seam where the outgoing meets the bar. That current seam moves with every storm — right now it's sitting about eighty yards east of where it was in May, which tells you the inlet's still reshaping itself from spring weather. Worth noting for anyone running the same drift they ran last month and wondering why it's not working.

Fluke are the real story of the bay-to-inlet shift. With the flats too warm to hold quality fish, the bite has consolidated into the channels — the deep bend off Tuthill, the cut running past the Smith Point bridge, and the inlet throat itself on the outgoing tide when that upwelled ocean water, running closer to 71 degrees, gets pulled through. That temperature differential is the whole ballgame. Five-inch white Gulp Swimming Mullets on 3/4-ounce bucktails, dragged slow along bottom on the outgoing, have taken fish to five pounds off the inlet drift. Bay-side, if you're set on staying inshore, work the deeper holes near the Route 27 bridge with a high-low rig — squid strips or spearing — but don't expect the numbers you had in June. The fish that are left are smart and they're sitting deep.

Bluefish have been a mixed bag — snappers are thick in the back bay creeks around East Moriches, which is good news for anyone introducing a kid to fishing, but the adult class has been spotty at the inlet rips. When they do show, it's on the outgoing, working diamond jigs or metal along the visible current break off Cupsogue's ocean side. Porgies remain a solid bread-and-butter option on the bay-side reef structure near Pattersquash — standard rigs with clam, nothing fancy, but steady action in eight to fifteen feet.

The wild card this week is the pelagic watch. The window for early bonito and Spanish mackerel reports along the eastern South Shore closes out around the 11th, and the conditions line up for Moriches and Shinnecock's ocean sides to get in on it — clean incoming water, warming surf temps, and bait pushed tight to the beach. I haven't seen it confirmed locally yet, but if you're surfcasting Cupsogue on a clean incoming tide this week, keep a small metal or epoxy jig rigged and ready. Worth a look, not worth building the whole trip around.

Looking ahead: the new moon springs peaking Saturday through Monday are the main event. Bigger tidal exchange means stronger current lanes at the throat, which should concentrate both bait and bass right where the channel narrows off Cupsogue. My plan is the Sunday evening flood — fishing the last two hours of incoming into the sunset high, working bunker chunks deep and eels along the current seam after dark. If that seam has shifted again — and with this much water moving through a storm-cut inlet, it wouldn't surprise me — I'll adjust on the spot rather than fish memory. Plan B if the bass don't cooperate is the fluke drift through the inlet throat on the following outgoing, where that cooler ocean water should still be holding fish tight to the channel edge.