New moon springs load up the PM flood — bass show at Peaks and Two Lights, groundfish push deep off Halfway Rock

Last week the wind sat in the northeast more than I'd like for this time of year, and it did what northeast wind always does to this bay — it stacked a chop against the outer islands and pushed a slug of cooler water up onto the ledges around Halfway Rock. That's not all bad. It firmed up the thermocline out there, which matters more than people think. Surface water in the inner bay — Portland waterfront, back of Peaks, up into the Presumpscot mouth — has been running warm and a little soft on top, the kind of water that pushes bait shallow and pulls groundfish deep to find something they like. Out at the Rock and around Eagle Island the upwelling sharpened that break, and I found cleaner, cooler water sitting on the bottom structure in 70 to 90 feet, which is exactly where you want it if you're chasing cod and haddock in July.

This week the moon is the story. We're building into new-moon springs, biggest tide swing we've seen since before the last full moon, and it peaks right around July 11 through 13. That means more water moving faster through the guts between the islands, and it means the evening flood is stacking up right around sunset for the next several days — first real PM window like this since June. When the flood and the light change line up like that, bass push bait against structure they'd otherwise ignore at midday, and they do it with some confidence because low light plus moving water equals safety for a fish that doesn't love being out in the open. I'd plan around that evening tide all week, not the morning.

Stripers have been a mixed bag, honestly, and I want to say that straight out rather than oversell it. Some days you find them stacked tight to structure, other days you work three miles of shoreline and manage two fish. What's consistent is where they show when they do show — the eastern side of Peaks Island on the last two hours of the incoming, working the ledge drop where it goes from eight feet to twenty-two quick. I've had good luck there on a swimming plug worked slow just off bottom, and when that's not drawing strikes I switch to a live mackerel under a slip float, letting it work naturally in the current seam. Two Lights has also been holding fish on the outgoing, particularly around the second hour when the water's really ripping past the rocks — bucktails, half-ounce to an ounce depending on the push, tipped with a strip of squid or mackerel belly, bounced along that rocky bottom. Bluefish have started mixing in with the bass around there too, chopping up the same bait schools, so if you're getting cut-off leaders on wire-shy stripers gear, that's your answer — the blues found the same mackerel the bass did.

Speaking of mackerel — the spring run has mostly passed through, but there are still pockets holding around Halfway Rock and off Bailey Island in 15 to 30 feet, enough that a string of Swedish jigs or a sabiki rig dropped off a stationary boat will still fill a bait bucket most mornings. That's been the real value of the mackerel right now, less as a target and more as the live bait that's making the striper program work.

Groundfish has been the harder story this week, and I won't pretend otherwise. The warm surface layer in the inner bay has pushed cod and haddock deep and made them cagey. Around Halfway Rock, though, that NE-driven upwelling I mentioned actually helped — boats working the deeper ledges, 70 to 90 feet on the northeast side of the rock, have been finding cod in the 3 to 8 pound range on diamond jigs worked with a slow lift-drop, and a scattering of haddock mixed in on bait — clam or herring chunks on a high-low rig, fished right on bottom during the slower current at the top and bottom of the tide. The bite window is tight, usually the last hour before slack and the first hour after, because once that current starts really ripping through there the fish tuck down and quit. Cape Small and the ledges off Harpswell have been quieter, more a June-style bite that hasn't fully carried into July — worth a stop if you're passing through, not worth a dedicated run right now.

Looking ahead, I'd build my week around that evening flood through the weekend while the new moon tide is still building strength — Peaks Island and Two Lights are where I'd put my time between 6 and 9 in the evening, live mackerel or a slow-worked bucktail depending on how much current you've got. If the wind backs off out of the northeast the way it's been forecast to, I'd expect that cooler water at Halfway Rock to hold, which means the cod bite there should stay steady through the week on the same tide-timing pattern — fish the slack, not the rip. Best case, the bass settle into a more predictable pattern as these big tides keep flushing bait past the structure. If they stay scattered the way they have been, I'd rather put in an extra evening at the Rock jigging cod than beat the shoreline chasing bass that aren't committing yet. Either way, the tide's doing the work for you this week — you just have to be there when it turns.