A few spotlight photos from north to south of NJ’s favorite summer species.
Just as with 2024, the 2025 summer flounder season – or fluke season, depending on whether you refer to a summer visitor to the Jersey Shore as SHOOBIE (south) or BENNY (north) – got off to another cold and windy start on May 4. But with ocean water temps staying on the cool side well into Memorial Day weekend, it’s kept the back bay flattie bite relatively stable.
Thinking back to last season, we started getting jammed up with the incessant south winds during the summer of 2024 which negatively impacted the bite out front. We’ll have to see what happens after the official start of summer on June 20 and the inshore versus back bay bite, but one notable observation this season as evidenced in this week’s photo gallery is the number of quality fluke (sorry, flounder) in the surf during the spring.
Got a report to share? Send your photos and captions to me via email at jhutchinson@thefisherman.com for a chance to get spotlighted in The Fisherman Magazine or in our weekly Thursday video fishing forecast for the New Jersey, Delaware Bay region.
