Barnegat Bay

Barnegat Bay is the long, shallow lagoon behind Island Beach and Long Beach Island, about 30 miles long and 1 to 4 miles wide. It averages only about 5 feet deep, with the deepest water along the dredged Intracoastal Waterway, and it's fed by the ocean through Barnegat Inlet at mid-bay, Little Egg Inlet at the south end and the Point Pleasant Canal at the north. Eelgrass beds cover the shallow flats, and the bay is a major nursery for bluefish and weakfish.

When to fish

• Mid to late March: stripers and bluefish start roaming the bay.
• Late April and early May: big, hungry "racer" bluefish arrive and tear up topwater plugs in shallow water.
• April to June: black drum have recently pushed into the bay on the spring full and new moons. In one recent April, hundreds of drum of 50 to 60 pounds were caught from boats, docks and piers.
• June: the best month to catch weakfish, stripers, bluefish and fluke all in one day.
• Late summer: tautog set up on deeper sod-bank ledges and old rubble.
• Spring: winter flounder, which are most abundant from Raritan Bay south to Barnegat Bay.

Where to fish

• Flats outside the Intracoastal Waterway: fluke sit up on 4- to 7-foot flats in the morning, then slide down the channel slopes into 10 to 15 feet by midday.
• Sod banks and marsh edges: stripers ambush bait spilling off the flats on the outgoing tide, especially at dawn and dusk. Deeper sod-bank ledges hold tautog in late summer.
• Channels and ledges: weakfish patrol them at night.
• The inlets: Barnegat Inlet at mid-bay is a classic striper spot.
• The bay side of Island Beach: a traditional place to wade in spring.

How to fish it

For fluke, jig a light white bucktail with a teaser around slack tide, and switch to a strip bait on a sliding fishfinder rig when the current runs hard. For night weakfish, slowly work soft plastics near the bottom, or anchor on a ledge and chum with grass shrimp, drifting shrimp back on a float. For stripers, throw poppers against the sod banks at first light or bounce paddletails through the channels. Racer bluefish crush walk-the-dog topwater plugs; if you're wading, swap the trebles for a single hook. For tautog, fish halved green crabs on a jig tight to structure, where they often bite as the tide starts moving after slack.

Getting there

There are many public and private launches around the bay, and several shore spots have their own pages here. Anglers 16 and older must register with New Jersey's free Saltwater Recreational Registry.