New moon springs load up the PM flood — stripers on the rocks, first bonito whispers at Watch Hill

Last week the Sound was still shaking off that stretch of dead current we get around the full moon — slack tides that don't really go anywhere, fish scattered and lazy. That's changing fast. We're sliding into a new moon this weekend, and the tides are already building toward spring range. I watched the flood push harder each afternoon this week off Wamphassuc Point, and by Thursday there was real push through the boulder fields — enough to wake up bait that had been sitting stale in the eddies. Water in the bay side has been warm, pushing into the high 70s in the back coves, which is exactly why the better fish have been sliding out toward the mouth of the Sound and the ocean-influenced water around Fishers Island and Watch Hill Reef, where upwelling off the Race and outside Block has been dropping in cooler, cleaner water — I'd guess low 70s out there based on how the fish are behaving, tight to structure and feeding hard on the moving tide instead of roaming.

The window everyone in this zone should have circled is Friday through Monday, July 10–13. New moon springs peak right in there, and the high stand of the tide is lining up with sunset — that's the exact setup that turns the western Sound into a striper program instead of a guessing game. When the flood tops out as the light goes down, bass move up onto the structure to feed in that last hour, and with spring tide push behind it, bait gets flushed hard off the rock piles. This is the first real PM flood-sunset window we've had since the June full moon, and if the wind cooperates — anything out of the south or southwest under 12 knots — I'd be rearranging my week around it.

Stripers have been the most consistent read all week, but it's not been easy fishing — more a game of covering ground and hitting the tide right than just showing up and slamming them. Ram Island's boulder field on the outgoing has produced schoolies to 28 inches on swimming plugs, olive-over-white Slug-Go's worked slow along the rock edges, and the occasional better fish — mid-30s — coming off Wamphassuc Point on bunker chunks fished on the bottom right at the base of the drop where the current cuts hardest. Esker Point has been quieter than I'd like, but a few guys working the Stonington side of the breakwater at first light have picked at fish holding tight to the riprap, taking them on 3/4-ounce bucktails with a curly-tail trailer, bounced slow through 8 to 12 feet of water on the last of the outgoing. The pattern right now favors low light and moving water — midday and dead tide have been mostly quiet.

Fluke have shifted out of the back bays the way they usually do once the shallow water gets too warm to hold bait — Little Narragansett Bay has gone soft, and the better drifts now are in Fishers Island Sound proper, especially the deeper cuts and the edges of Watch Hill Passage where the tide funnels and the bottom drops to 25-30 feet. White Gulp Swimming Mullets on 3/4-ounce bucktails, dragged slow on the outgoing, have taken keepers to 4 pounds, with the occasional better fish mixed in on strips of squid teased behind the jig. If you're marking bait on the sounder but not getting bit, slow down — these fish have been sluggish, picking, not the aggressive grab you'd expect in cooler water.

Now the interesting piece — the cold wall that usually pins bonito and albies to the Block Island side has broken down, with water on the Rhode Island side running noticeably warmer than it has been. That collapse means the bonito corridor is spreading west, and I wouldn't be shocked to see the first fish show at Watch Hill Reef or off Napatree Point before the month is out. Nobody's boated one in my immediate water yet — this is early, and I want to be honest about that — but the conditions read right: warm, clean water pushing west, bait starting to stage on the reef structure. If you're a fly or light-tackle guy who likes to scout, now's the time to start running the reef on calm mornings with a bucktail teaser and a pair of eyes on the surface. I'll be doing exactly that over the next week, more out of habit and hope than confidence, but that's how you're first on the fish when they finally show.

Black sea bass have been a steady, unglamorous producer around the rock piles off Fishers Island — 12 to 20 feet of water, squid strips on a two-hook bottom rig, best on the last hour of the incoming when the current slows enough for bait to sit still. Not a headline fish, but a good one to fall back on when the striper bite goes quiet midday.

Looking ahead: if the wind stays reasonable through the weekend, Friday and Saturday evening's flood-sunset overlap at Ram Island and Wamphassuc Point is where I'd put my time — that's the best alignment we've had in a month. Plan B if the bass don't cooperate is the fluke drift through Watch Hill Passage on the outgoing, which has been steady if unspectacular. And keep half an eye on the reef for bonito — the water's telling me they're closer than they've been in years at this point in July, even if nobody's touched one yet.