Great Egg Harbor Bay Fishing Guides
A wide, shallow South Jersey back bay behind Ocean City, guided year-round for stripers, fluke and drum across its channels, sod banks and inlet.
Guides on the Great Egg Harbor Bay
Claimed profiles take booking requests. Unclaimed profiles are built from public records so the river is never empty; the guide can claim or remove one any time.
No guides listed yet
Guide or outfit this water? Create your profile. Listing is free, the commission is 10% or 7% with a premium profile, and premium profiles list first on this water.
About the Great Egg Harbor Bay
Great Egg Harbor Bay is the broad shallow water that sits between Ocean City and the mainland at Somers Point, where the Great Egg Harbor River finishes its run out of the Pine Barrens and spreads into a maze of sod banks, marsh islands, thoroughfares and dredged channels. It is a proper South Jersey back bay: most of it is only a few feet deep at low water, the productive parts are the edges where a channel drops away from a flat, and knowing which cut holds water on which stage of tide is the difference between a good day and a long push off a bar.
The fishery is the classic back-bay mix and it runs most of the year. Striped bass work the sod bank edges and the bridge pilings, and the fish that winter over give the bay a genuine cold-weather season that the open beach does not have. Summer flounder move onto the flats and into the channel mouths through the warm months and are the most-targeted fish here. Black drum are a spring specialty in the deeper holes, weakfish and croaker come and go with the water temperature, and blackfish and sea bass hold on the rubble and around the inlet structure. The crabbing is excellent and is a real part of the local economy. Light-tackle and fly guides run out of Somers Point and Ocean City and fish almost entirely inside the bay.
The gauge at Ocean City publishes both tidal elevation and water temperature, and the temperature is the number worth watching. It is what tells you when the drum will show in spring, when the flounder have settled, and when the wintering stripers will turn on. The elevation trace is a tide clock for planning which flats and thoroughfares are runnable.
This water needs a real photo
The photo at the top of this page is not Great Egg Harbor Bay.
It is a regional stand-in, honestly captioned but generic — we will not put a name to a river we cannot prove. Send us a photograph you took here and it replaces the stand-in, with your credit on it.
Add a photo of this water
Landscape, not fish — the water itself. Reviewed by hand before it appears. The first one published here earns the Pioneer badge.
Fished this water? Add a photo
Reviewed by hand before it appears. Pick the water, not the spot — we never publish exact locations.
Access
Somers Point municipal ramp - the main mainland launch onto the bay.
Ocean City 10th Street boat ramp - island-side access to the back bays.
Route 52 causeway shoulders and walkways - bank and bridge fishing over deep channel water.
Longport Bridge fishing pier - structure access at the north end of the system.
Beesleys Point shoreline - walk-in access on the upper bay.
Corson Inlet State Park - shore and small-boat access toward the south end.
Somers Point Bay Avenue bulkhead - easy walk-in fishing and crabbing.
Seasons
Spring: black drum in the holes and the first striped bass on the sod banks as the water warms.
Summer: flounder on the flats, crabbing at its peak, and bluefish through the inlet cuts.
Fall: the best all-round month as bass, blues and weakfish feed hard before leaving.
Winter: quiet but not dead, with holdover stripers in the deep channels and blackfish near structure.
From the water
No logged trips yet. Be the first to put this water on your map.
Log this water
Fished it or cleaned it? Log in or create a free account to log a trip with photos and earn the waterway badge.
Questions
What species can you catch on the Great Egg Harbor Bay?
Anglers target Atlantic Croaker, Black Drum, Black Sea Bass, Blue Crab, Bluefish, Northern Kingfish, Red Drum, Striped Bass, Summer Flounder, Tautog, Weakfish on the Great Egg Harbor Bay in New Jersey.
Where can you access the Great Egg Harbor Bay?
Somers Point municipal ramp - the main mainland launch onto the bay. Ocean City 10th Street boat ramp - island-side access to the back bays. Route 52 causeway shoulders and walkways - bank and bridge fishing over deep channel water. Longport Bridge fishing pier - structure access at the north end of the system. Beesleys Point shoreline - walk-in access on the upper bay. Corson Inlet State Park - shore and small-boat access toward the south end. Somers Point Bay Avenue bulkhead - easy walk-in fishing and crabbing.
When is the best time to fish the Great Egg Harbor Bay?
Spring: black drum in the holes and the first striped bass on the sod banks as the water warms. Summer: flounder on the flats, crabbing at its peak, and bluefish through the inlet cuts. Fall: the best all-round month as bass, blues and weakfish feed hard before leaving. Winter: quiet but not dead, with holdover stripers in the deep channels and blackfish near structure.
Where are the fishing regulations for the Great Egg Harbor Bay?
Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the New Jersey agency site: https://dep.nj.gov/njfw/fishing/marine/