Spring tides build for the weekend push — fluke crowd the inlets as the back bay cooks

Last week the back bay did what it does every July — it got too warm for its own good. Absecon and Great Egg both pushed well up into the upper 70s on the flats, and once that shallow water starts cooking, the fluke vote with their fins. I watched it happen in real time: drifts that were stacked with keepers off the Brigantine sod banks two weeks ago went quiet, while the same fish started showing up thick in the deeper cuts at the inlet mouths, where the tide keeps things circulating and a few degrees cooler. That's not a coincidence, that's a thermometer doing the talking. Wind's been the typical July mess — light and variable mornings, building out of the southwest into the afternoon, enough to chop up the open beach but nothing that's shut down the back bay program.

This week the moon is the story. We're building into new moon springs, with the tightest alignment landing Saturday through Monday, July 11-13. Bigger tidal swing means more water moving through Absecon and Great Egg on every cycle, and more water moving means bait gets flushed hard on the outgoing — mullet, spearing, the last of the peanut bunker riding the current right out the throat of the inlet. That's exactly where I want to be with a rod in my hand. The last time we had a spring tide push this strong, the outgoing at Great Egg turned into a conveyor belt for two solid hours around the top of the tide, and I expect the same setup this weekend if the wind stays out of the south and doesn't blow the inlet into a washing machine.

Fluke are still the headline. The bay-to-inlet shift is in full swing now, and the better fish are sitting right on the channel edges where the sod bank drops into 15 to 25 feet — the elbow just inside Absecon Inlet by the Coast Guard station has been holding fish, and the deeper bend on the Great Egg side toward Longport has too. Outgoing water is the tide to fish; that current stacks bait against the drop and the fluke set up behind it like trout below a riffle. I've had the best luck dragging 4-inch white Gulp Swimming Mullets on 3/4-ounce chartreuse bucktails, slow enough that you can feel the bottom the whole way, with a bump-and-drag retrieve rather than a straight pull. Doormats aren't showing every drift — this isn't a gimme bite — but there's enough size mixed in with the keepers that every trip out there has a shot at something over 20 inches. I'd call it a solid, honest bite, not a blowup.

Bluefish have been the more reliable action if you want bent rods without the patience game. Bunker schools are working the surf line from Ocean City down through Sea Isle at first light and again toward dusk, and the blues are underneath them cutting them to pieces. Ava 27 jigs and bunker spoons thrown into the melee have been producing fish in the 3 to 6 pound range, sometimes bigger when a resident cow shows up on the edge of the school. If you see the bunker nervous and balled up tight near the second bar, that's your window — it doesn't last long, usually twenty minutes before the school scatters and the blues follow it down the beach.

Kingfish are the dependable summer snack bite and they haven't let anyone down. Ocean City's public beaches and the surf off Stone Harbor have both been giving up steady numbers on bloodworms and synthetic worm strips fished on a simple high-low rig in the trough, best on the last two hours of the incoming when the wash settles. Nothing glamorous, but it's a bucket of dinner and a good way to keep a kid interested while the adults work bigger baits.

Weakfish are the one I have to be honest about. The bay water's been plenty warm enough — above 70 for over two weeks now — and on paper that should mean weakfish showing up in the usual spots off Longport and inside Townsends Inlet. It hasn't happened. I've heard of scattered fish taken at dusk on white Bass Assassins fished slow along the edge of the channel drop, but nothing that adds up to a real pattern yet. Warm water gets them in the neighborhood, it doesn't guarantee they show up to eat. I'm not writing them off for August, but right now I wouldn't plan a trip around them.

Triggerfish are still turning up as a bonus around the rock piles at Townsends Inlet and the jetty at Great Egg, usually on clam strips or squid intended for fluke. Small numbers, but a fun surprise when one nails a bucktail meant for something else.

Striped bass are mostly a memory for daytime fishing down here this time of year — the water's too warm for them to want much to do with the surf. The one window worth watching is right at first light at the inlet mouths, where a few resident fish have been picked at on bunker chunks fished on the bottom before the sun gets up. Small sample, not something to build a weekend around.

Looking ahead, I'd put my time into the outgoing at Absecon and Great Egg through the spring tide peak Saturday into Monday — that's when the current will be strongest and the fluke bite has the best shot at turning into something more than steady. If the wind stays cooperative I'd fish the first hour of outgoing right off the top of the tide, work the bucktail slow along the channel edge, and keep a rod rigged with a bunker spoon in the truck in case the blues show up on the beach on the walk back.