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Home › Waters › New Jersey › Inside Thorofare
Estuary · New Jersey shore behind Absecon Island, the back-bay channel between Atlantic City and the Absecon Bay marshes and the inlet · New Jersey

Inside Thorofare Fishing Guides

The back channel behind Atlantic City, where the tide runs hard past bulkheads and bridges and stripers hold in the structure.

A muddy tidal creek winding through marshland on a foggy morning
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Inside Thorofare

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About the Inside Thorofare

Inside Thorofare runs behind Atlantic City, separating Absecon Island from the marsh and meadow of Absecon Bay and connecting toward Absecon Inlet at the north end. It is an urban estuary in the most literal sense – the casino skyline stands directly over it, bridges cross it, and bulkhead and pilings line long stretches of its edge. Anglers who write off urban water miss the point here entirely. Structure is what estuary fish want, and this channel has more of it per mile than any natural marsh creek in the state, with a hard tidal current running past all of it twice a day.

Striped bass are the headline and they use this water heavily, holding tight to bridge pilings, bulkhead corners and any place where the current forms a seam or an eddy. They can be caught here through much of the year and the fall run behind the island is genuinely good. Summer flounder work the channel bottom through the warm months. Tautog and black sea bass hold on the hard structure around the bridges and jetty rock nearer the inlet. Bluefish push through in schools, weakfish appear in spring and fall, and blue crabs are thick in the shallows and around the marsh edge all summer.

The gauge here publishes tidal elevation only – no discharge and no water temperature – and that single trace is genuinely the most useful thing on it. In an estuary the tide stage is the fishing forecast. Work the moving water, particularly the two hours either side of the change, and expect the bite to shut off on slack. Access is a mix of bulkhead and bridge walkways in town, small-boat ramps, and kayak launches on the mainland marsh side. Read the local posted rules, since much of the urban bulkhead is private.

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  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

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Reviewed by hand before it appears. Pick the water, not the spot — we never publish exact locations.

Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Inside Thorofare.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Access

Atlantic City bayside bulkheads and street ends - walk-in access, subject to posted rules.
US 40 and US 322 bridge approaches - shore access with hard current beside structure.
Gardner's Basin area - a north-end access point near the inlet.
Absecon Inlet jetty and seawall - rock structure access at the mouth.
Back Bay boat ramps in Atlantic City - trailer access to the thorofare.
Absecon Bay marsh launches on the mainland - kayak entry to the meadow creeks.
Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge waters - paddle access north of the city.

Seasons

Spring: weakfish and early striped bass move in as the back bay warms ahead of the surf.
Summer: flounder along the channel, crabs in the shallows and stripers holding in bridge shade.
Fall: the best of the year - the striper run through the thorofare with bluefish alongside.
Winter: quiet, though a few holdover stripers stay in the deeper channel through mild spells.

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Questions

What species can you catch on the Inside Thorofare?

Anglers target American Eel, Atlantic Croaker, Black Drum, Black Sea Bass, Blue Crab, Bluefish, Northern Kingfish, Striped Bass, Summer Flounder, Tautog, Weakfish on the Inside Thorofare in New Jersey.

Where can you access the Inside Thorofare?

Atlantic City bayside bulkheads and street ends - walk-in access, subject to posted rules. US 40 and US 322 bridge approaches - shore access with hard current beside structure. Gardner's Basin area - a north-end access point near the inlet. Absecon Inlet jetty and seawall - rock structure access at the mouth. Back Bay boat ramps in Atlantic City - trailer access to the thorofare. Absecon Bay marsh launches on the mainland - kayak entry to the meadow creeks. Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge waters - paddle access north of the city.

When is the best time to fish the Inside Thorofare?

Spring: weakfish and early striped bass move in as the back bay warms ahead of the surf. Summer: flounder along the channel, crabs in the shallows and stripers holding in bridge shade. Fall: the best of the year - the striper run through the thorofare with bluefish alongside. Winter: quiet, though a few holdover stripers stay in the deeper channel through mild spells.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Inside Thorofare?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the New Jersey agency site: https://dep.nj.gov/njfw/fishing/marine/