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Home › Waters › New Jersey › Shark River
Estuary · Monmouth County shore, the tidal basin and inlet behind Belmar and Avon-by-the-Sea where the Shark River meets the Atlantic · New Jersey

Shark River Fishing Guides

A compact Monmouth County estuary behind Belmar, fished hard from boats and bulkheads for stripers, fluke and blackfish on every tide.

A boardwalk crossing tidal marsh at sunset on the southeastern coast
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Shark River

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About the Shark River

Shark River is small for an estuary and busy in proportion. The river itself is a modest Monmouth County stream, but where it widens behind Belmar and Avon-by-the-Sea it becomes a genuine tidal basin, with a marina district, a pair of highway bridges, deep holes scoured beside the pilings and a short jettied inlet that opens straight into the Atlantic. That inlet is the whole story. It concentrates every fish moving along the shore into a channel narrow enough to cover from a small boat, and it is close enough to the beach that a great deal of the fishing happens within sight of the boardwalk.

The calendar is an ocean calendar rather than a river one. Striped bass push in on the spring run and again in the fall, working the bridge shadows on a moving tide and the inlet mouth at dawn. Summer flounder settle on the sand flats inside the basin through the warm months and are the bread-and-butter charter fish here. Blackfish hold on the jetty rock and the bridge abutments into cold weather, bluefish blitz the inlet when bait piles up, and weakfish, croaker and kingfish fill out the mixed-bag days. Crabbers work the back reaches all summer. Guided trips run out of the Belmar and Shark River Hills marinas, mostly half-days, and many of them never leave the estuary at all.

The gauge at Belmar publishes tidal elevation and nothing else, which is exactly right for this water. There is no meaningful freshwater discharge to read and no temperature sensor, so the trace is a tide clock rather than a fishing forecast. Use it to time the stages of the tide you want to fish and to know when the inlet will be running hard enough to be uncomfortable in a small boat.

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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.

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  • 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.

Fished this water? Add a photo

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 Shark River.

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

Belmar Municipal Marina - the main public ramp and the launch most charters run from.
Shark River Hills Marina - a second ramp with easier access to the upper basin.
Route 35 bridge walkways - bulkhead and bridge fishing over the deepest water in the estuary.
Belmar Fishing Club pier - structured access on the inlet side.
L Street and Shark River Island shoreline - walk-in bank access on the north bank.
Avon-by-the-Sea inlet jetty - rock access to the mouth for blackfish and stripers.
Shark River Park in Neptune - upper freshwater reaches for a quieter walk-in option.

Seasons

Spring: the striped bass run arrives and fluke season opens, with the inlet fishing best on a moving tide.
Summer: fluke on the flats, crabbing in the back, and blues in the inlet whenever bait shows.
Fall: the strongest fishing of the year as bass and blues stage before running south.
Winter: quiet and cold, with blackfish on the rock and a handful of holdover stripers in the deep holes.

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Questions

What species can you catch on the Shark River?

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

Where can you access the Shark River?

Belmar Municipal Marina - the main public ramp and the launch most charters run from. Shark River Hills Marina - a second ramp with easier access to the upper basin. Route 35 bridge walkways - bulkhead and bridge fishing over the deepest water in the estuary. Belmar Fishing Club pier - structured access on the inlet side. L Street and Shark River Island shoreline - walk-in bank access on the north bank. Avon-by-the-Sea inlet jetty - rock access to the mouth for blackfish and stripers. Shark River Park in Neptune - upper freshwater reaches for a quieter walk-in option.

When is the best time to fish the Shark River?

Spring: the striped bass run arrives and fluke season opens, with the inlet fishing best on a moving tide. Summer: fluke on the flats, crabbing in the back, and blues in the inlet whenever bait shows. Fall: the strongest fishing of the year as bass and blues stage before running south. Winter: quiet and cold, with blackfish on the rock and a handful of holdover stripers in the deep holes.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Shark River?

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