New moon springs load up the Thames — stripers stack the seams at Fort Trumbull

Last week the Thames ran warm and lazy up top — the kind of slack, sticky water you get after a stretch of light southerly wind and a waning moon that never built much push. Surface temps in the upper river above the Gold Star Bridge crept into the mid-70s, and that pushed the better fish down and out, the way it always does this time of year. Low water at Fort Trumbull was showing more mud flat than usual on the smaller neap tides, and the current through the pilings barely had enough shoulder to hold a bait tight without extra lead. It was fishable, but it was the kind of week where you had to work the calendar and the clock more than the run-and-gun approach.

That changes starting now. We're building into new moon on the 13th, and the spring tides that come with it are already loading in — bigger swings top to bottom, more water moving through the harbor mouth and the Fort Trumbull rips, and a PM flood that lines up with sunset from Friday the 10th through Monday the 13th. That's the window I want in my logbook. Bigger tide means more current seam at the bridge pilings, more bait getting flushed out of the upper river on the ebb, and predator fish sliding down to intercept it right where the harbor narrows. Wind looks manageable — nothing stronger than a light southwest breeze most of the week — so the water should stay clean instead of getting churned into chop. Combine a strong spring tide with a calm evening and a falling sun, and that's about as good as this harbor gets in July.

Stripers have been holding true to that pattern already. The better fish — mid-20s to low 30-inch class, with a few pushing 36 — are stacking on the last two hours of the outgoing at Fort Trumbull, sitting in the eddy behind the point where the current breaks off the rock face. Live eels fished on a fish-finder rig, just enough weight to keep them ticking bottom in that 15 to 20 foot slot, have been the most consistent producer after dark. If you don't want to mess with eels, bunker chunks on a 5/0 circle hook in the same depth have been drawing takes, especially with menhaden schools showing thick around the harbor mouth and off Ocean Beach the last ten days. During the day, bucktails in the 1 to 1.5 ounce range — white or olive, tipped with a strip of squid — worked slow along the Gold Star Bridge pilings on the last of the incoming have picked at fish holding tight to the structure, though it's been more of a pick than a bite. Two or three fish an outing if you're putting in the time, not a fish every drift.

Bluefish have been the more reliable action this week, and they're the ones actually chasing bait on top. Schools of peanut bunker and small menhaden have been getting pushed against the beach at Ocean Beach and Pleasure Beach on the last hour of the outgoing, and when the blues find them it shows — diving birds, nervous water, the whole show. Poppers and metal — half-ounce Deadly Dicks or a small Yo-Zuri popper — have been drawing blitzes that don't last long, ten, fifteen minutes at a crack, but worth having tackle rigged and ready in the truck if you're driving past. These aren't the giant blues from a few years back, mostly cocktail-sized in the 2 to 4 pound range, but they'll bend a light rod and they're fun on top water.

Porgies have settled into their usual summer spots — the flats off Pleasure Beach and the deeper edges of the channel below Fort Trumbull, 15 to 25 feet, on sandworms or clam strips fished on a simple two-hook bottom rig. Nothing dramatic there, just steady, honest fishing if you want dinner and don't need a fight. Blackfish are mostly off the table right now with the summer closure in effect in Connecticut waters — worth checking current regs before you target them, but I wouldn't be planning a tog trip this month regardless.

The hickory shad run that had some action up around the falls back in the spring has wrapped up for the season — that window's closed until next year, so don't waste a tide up there looking for them now.

If I had one evening to fish this week, I'd take Saturday the 11th, work the last two hours of the outgoing at Fort Trumbull into the start of the new flood, and fish eels through the dark. The spring tide push plus the PM flood-sunset alignment is about as good a setup as the Thames offers in midsummer — big water moving, bait getting flushed, and predator fish using the seam instead of fighting it. If that window underdelivers, Plan B is running metal at Pleasure Beach on the blitzing blues, because those schools have been showing up almost daily regardless of tide stage. Either way, keep an eye on the wind forecast — if it swings onshore hard out of the southeast before the weekend, that clean water at the harbor mouth won't stay clean for long, and I'd rather fish the upper river seams instead.