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Home › Waters › New York › Moriches Bay
Estuary · Long Island, Suffolk County, the south shore bay between Westhampton and Center Moriches behind the barrier beach · New York

Moriches Bay Fishing Guides

A shallow south-shore bay behind the Long Island barrier beach, with an inlet that concentrates fish, fluke over the sand flats and striped bass working the channel edges on the tide.

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

Guides on the Moriches Bay

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About the Moriches Bay

Moriches Bay sits behind the barrier beach on Long Island’s south shore, between Great South Bay to the west and Shinnecock Bay to the east, and connects to the Atlantic through Moriches Inlet. The gauge at East Moriches reads estuary water level rather than discharge, which is the right instrument for a bay whose fishing is driven by tide rather than by rainfall. Water level and the stage of the tide govern where the bait sits and therefore where the fish are.

The bay is shallow and broad, with extensive sand flats, eelgrass where it survives, and a network of channels that drain the shallows on the falling tide. Those channel edges are the structure that matters, because there is little hard bottom away from the inlet and the bridges. Moriches Inlet itself is the focal point of the fishery: current runs hard through it, bait is funnelled with the tide, and predators stack up on both sides. The inlet is also genuinely dangerous in wind against tide and deserves respect from anyone running a small boat.

Summer flounder are the bread and butter of the bay and are worked over the sand and along the channel edges through the warm months. Striped bass hold around the inlet, the bridges and the drop-offs, best on moving water. Bluefish come through in numbers, black sea bass and tautog use the hard structure near the inlet, weakfish appear in some seasons, and northern kingfish are a summer surf and flats fish. Blue crab are abundant. Local knowledge of which flats drain first on the falling tide is worth more here than any amount of expensive tackle.

Access is good from Suffolk County and town ramps, and from the barrier beach on foot.

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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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Posting to Moriches Bay.

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

Moriches Inlet - the connection to the ocean and the focal point of the fishery, with strong current and heavy structure.
East Moriches and Center Moriches - the mainland villages, with ramps, fuel, tackle and food.
Westhampton - the eastern end of the bay, with further access and lodging.
Cupsogue Beach County Park - barrier-beach access on the west side of the inlet with parking and surf fishing.
Smith Point County Park - a further barrier-beach option to the west.
Great South Bay - the larger neighbouring bay west, a good alternative in wind.
Shinnecock Bay - the neighbouring system east, reached in a short drive.

Seasons

Spring: striped bass move into the bay as the shallows warm ahead of the ocean, and the back bays fish first.
Summer: fluke fishing peaks over the sand and channel edges, with bluefish and sea bass around the inlet.
Fall: the autumn run brings bass and blues hard onto outgoing bait at the inlet, the best fishing of the year.
Winter: the bay empties out, most species leave for deeper water, and the fishery effectively closes.

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Questions

What species can you catch on the Moriches Bay?

Anglers target Black Sea Bass, Blue Crab, Bluefish, Northern Kingfish, Striped Bass, Summer Flounder, Tautog, Weakfish on the Moriches Bay in New York.

Where can you access the Moriches Bay?

Moriches Inlet - the connection to the ocean and the focal point of the fishery, with strong current and heavy structure. East Moriches and Center Moriches - the mainland villages, with ramps, fuel, tackle and food. Westhampton - the eastern end of the bay, with further access and lodging. Cupsogue Beach County Park - barrier-beach access on the west side of the inlet with parking and surf fishing. Smith Point County Park - a further barrier-beach option to the west. Great South Bay - the larger neighbouring bay west, a good alternative in wind. Shinnecock Bay - the neighbouring system east, r...

When is the best time to fish the Moriches Bay?

Spring: striped bass move into the bay as the shallows warm ahead of the ocean, and the back bays fish first. Summer: fluke fishing peaks over the sand and channel edges, with bluefish and sea bass around the inlet. Fall: the autumn run brings bass and blues hard onto outgoing bait at the inlet, the best fishing of the year. Winter: the bay empties out, most species leave for deeper water, and the fishery effectively closes.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Moriches Bay?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the New York agency site: https://dec.ny.gov/things-to-do/freshwater-fishing/regulations