Great Bay and the Mullica River

Great Bay is the open water at the mouth of the Mullica River, between Ocean and Atlantic counties about 10 miles north of Atlantic City. The Mullica drains the largest watershed in the Pine Barrens, and the bay meets the ocean at Little Egg Inlet. NJ Fish and Wildlife calls it one of the least-disturbed marine wetlands in the Northeast. It averages only about 5 feet deep, with eelgrass in the shallows and thousands of acres of sand and mud flats at low tide, and it's a major nursery for bluefish and weakfish.

When to fish

• Winter: white perch in the Mullica River, even through the ice.
• April to June: black drum come in to spawn, with the peak in May around the full and new moons, mostly at dusk and into the evening.
• Spring and fall: striped bass. Great Bay and the Mullica are traditional striper waters.
• June: the best time for a bayside "grand slam" of weakfish, stripers, bluefish and fluke.
• Late summer: tautog on sod-bank ledges and old rubble.

Where to fish

• Great Bay Boulevard WMA: a narrow road running out through 5,982 acres of salt marsh near Tuckerton, with shore access and a public boat launch just over the bridge at Big Thorofare Inlet.
• Sod banks around Great Bay and Little Egg Harbor, and Graveling Point: good bay-side black drum spots on high tide.
• The flats and channel edges: fluke in the morning on the shallow flats, then on the deeper slopes; weakfish at night.
• The Mullica River: stripers, and white perch in the colder months.

How to fish it

Black drum want fresh clam on a big circle hook with a sliding fishfinder rig, and a clam chum slick helps. For June weakfish, work soft plastics slowly at night or chum with grass shrimp; for stripers, throw poppers along the sod banks at dawn and dusk; for fluke, jig bucktails on the flat edges. Tautog take halved green crabs on jigs worked tight to the ledges.

Getting there

Great Bay Boulevard WMA is in Ocean County near Tuckerton; Fish and Wildlife's public boat ramp is just over the bridge at Big Thorofare Inlet. Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge also offers shore access at Graveling Point (near the end of Radio Road) and Parker Run (off Dock Road) in Little Egg Harbor Township, and a boat ramp at Scotts Landing in Galloway Township on the Atlantic County side. Fishing from land isn't allowed along the refuge's Wildlife Drive. Anglers 16 and older must register with New Jersey's free Saltwater Recreational Registry.