Jones Beach offers a wide array of saltwater surf fishing opportunities.  Jones island stretches close to 20 miles long from the Captree piers to the West End 2 jetty.  There are also opportunities close by Jones Beach, to the east sits Fire Island and to the west is Long Beach.  In that stretch of Jones Beach it has miles of open beach, jetty’s, back bay's, coves and fishing piers, all of which is easily accessible to the shore bound angler.  You can spend a whole season day in and night out fishing and never see the same spot twice with positive results, that is of course if you know what your doing.  At the same time can be a daunting piece of water to read and keep up with the action and easily intimidating to the inexperienced angler.  

Big questions always linger in the mind weather to fish in the back bay, ocean front, jetty or pier's and that’s the first question you always ask before you leave the house - where do I go?  I can't begin to tell you where to start but this is a short list of the fishing opportunities you will have to ponder for your next outing.  We all prefer some kind of fishing method or style whether its the open beach with white water, rocky jetty's, calm back bay's or a nice comfortable pier, hopefully you will have a place to start.  You'll find other anglers on your outing who are usually more then willing to talk to you and can help put you on the fish.  Don't be afraid to ask people questions about where, how, what and when the fish are biting, do some detective work and don't hold back information either, you'll find yourself running across the same anglers time and time again.

After you figure where you want to fish you probably asked your self what you want to catch.  Jones Beach has it all, and world class trophies dwell in its waters.  Snapper's with the kids, 40lb class stripped bass from the rocks, blitzing gorilla blues from the surf, blackfish, sea bass and porgies from the comfort of a pier, cooler's full of king and trigger fish, weakfish at night, doormat fluke lurking feet from the surf, spring time flounders, monster rays and even a variety of sharks to be caught at night in the deep hot summer.  The are also times and days of the year you will find false albacore and spanish mackerel in its waters, last year I even saw a cobia caught in the inlet.   The fish are there and the opportunities exist, you just have to put your time in to find and catch them.

This is a general article as to where you can fish and what you may reasonable expect to catch.   The most important factor to fishing I truly believe is you have to put in your time.  Do not expect to run into a bloody blitz every time you go out, it will happen sometime in between your time fishing but have patience, read the water, talk to other anglers, gain some experience, find a rhythm and catch some fish in the meantime!