Seaside Park, NJ Fishing Report & Live Conditions

Seaside Park, NJ fishing report

Barnegat Bay and the Seaside Park surf fish hard from spring through late fall, with each season bringing a different target. Striped bass show first, pushing into the bay and along the beach in spring as water temps climb toward the mid-50s, then return in force during the fall run when bunker stack up nearshore. Bluefish arrive close behind the stripers and tear through the surf and bay channels all summer. Fluke move into the bay's shallower grass edges and channel drop-offs once water warms into the low 60s and hold there through summer. Weakfish, more finicky and less predictable than they once were, slip into the bay on quieter nights, especially around dusk in warmer months.

Work the inlet and bay channel edges on moving tides — stripers and blues stack where current sweeps bait past structure. For fluke, drift sandy bottom transitions near grass edges with a bucktail tipped with a Gulp or strip bait, keeping contact with the bottom. In the surf, match the hatch when bunker or mullet are showing — a 4 to 5 inch paddletail swimbait or a popper at dawn can draw violent strikes from stripers or bluefish. Weakfish favor light jigs and soft plastics worked slowly on a falling tide in calmer water. A northeast wind dirtying the surf pushes fish out of the beach; clear, slightly moving water on an incoming tide is almost always your best window.