Fishing Hot Spots

Lake guides for this map

Month-by-month patterns, fish, ramps and rules for each water:

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Fishing Hot Spots by area

Inlets, rips, rocks, reefs, piers and banks. Tap one to fly to it on the map.

Stripers at Montauk, the Race and Plum Gut, fluke on the South Shore and porgies in the Sound

New York and Connecticut waters are striped bass country. Spring brings big bass into the Narrows and Raritan Bay on the bunker schools, and in the fall the bass and bluefish blitz down the South Shore beaches and around Montauk Point, the surf-fishing capital of the East Coast. The rips at Plum Gut and the Race, where Long Island Sound drains into the ocean, are some of the strongest current on the coast and hold bass, bluefish, big blackfish and fall false albacore.

All summer the inlets from Rockaway to Jones, Fire Island, Moriches and Shinnecock are full of fluke, and the reefs, banks and rocks hold black sea bass, porgy and blackfish (tautog). Long Island Sound adds porgy, fluke, blackfish and weakfish along both the Long Island and Connecticut shores.

New York needs a free Recreational Marine Fishing Registry and Connecticut a marine fishing license. Striped bass, fluke, black sea bass, porgy and blackfish have seasons and slot or size limits that change often. Check NYS DEC and Connecticut DEEP rules before you go.