New moon tides fire the Sound as bass stack on bunker schools

The new moon on Friday delivered exactly what I expected — screaming tides that got the bait moving and the fish feeding. After weeks of watching scattered action, the Sound finally came alive this weekend with the kind of coordinated feeding that makes you remember why you fish these waters.

The story starts with the bunker. Adult bunker have been staging in the shipping channels for the past two weeks, but the spring tides finally pushed them out of the deep water and onto the structure. I'm seeing schools from the Stratford Shoal area all the way east to the Middle Ground Light, and wherever you find concentrated bait, you'll find stripers underneath.

The bass bite has been best on the moving water — specifically that first hour after slack when the current starts to build momentum. I've been working 1.5-ounce white bucktails with 5-inch white Gulp Swimming Mullets, casting up-current and letting them tumble down the structure faces. The key is maintaining bottom contact through the drift. These fish are positioned tight to the drops, facing into the flow, and they want that bait drifting naturally past their noses.

Port Jefferson Harbor has been producing consistent action on the outgoing tide. The ferry terminal pilings and the deeper water off the breakwall are holding fish in the 28 to 36-inch range. Live eels fished on fishfinder rigs have been deadly after dark, but during daylight hours, bucktails are outproducing everything else. The white-and-chartreuse combo that's been reliable all season continues to work, but I'm also seeing good results with pink bucktails when the water gets that slightly stained look from the tide movement.

What's interesting is how the fluke patterns have shifted with these bigger tides. Instead of holding in the traditional 25 to 35-foot depths, they've been moving into the 15 to 20-foot range on the flood tide, following the bait up onto the shallower structure. The Norwalk Islands area has been particularly productive, with doormat fluke to 6 pounds coming on white Gulp baits rigged on 3/4-ounce bucktails. The trick is fishing the channel edges where the bottom drops from 8 feet to 25 feet — that's where they're setting up to ambush.

I'm also seeing more bluefish mixed into the catches, which tells me the bait concentration is drawing in multiple species. The blues have been smaller — mostly in the 2 to 4-pound range — but they're aggressive and hitting the same bucktail presentations that are working for stripers. When you hook into a school, switch to a wire leader and work the area thoroughly.

The water temperature has been climbing steadily, hitting 68 degrees in the shallower bays and harbors while staying around 64 degrees in the deeper Sound water. That 4-degree gradient is creating a thermal break that's stacking bait on the flood tide and holding predators on the ebb. I'm watching for that temperature line to continue building as we move deeper into summer — it's going to be the key to finding consistent action.

Current speed has been the determining factor for success. When it's ripping at 2 knots or better, the fish are active and feeding. When it slacks off, the bite shuts down. The beauty of these new moon tides is that even the slack periods are relatively short — maybe 30 minutes of dead water before things start moving again.

Looking ahead, we're moving into the full moon cycle next week, which should maintain these strong tidal flows through the weekend. I'm expecting the bunker schools to continue pushing through the Sound, and with water temperatures climbing toward 70 degrees, we should see the first real push of summer species. Keep an eye out for weakfish starting to show in the deeper channels — they typically follow about two weeks behind the main bunker migration.

The key for the coming week is timing your trips to the tide. Fish the first two hours of the outgoing for stripers on structure, then switch to the flood tide for fluke in the shallower water. And don't overthink the lure selection — white bucktails with Gulp trailers are accounting for 80 percent of the fish being caught right now.