New-moon springs reopen the sunset striper window from Stratford Shoal to the Norwalk Islands

Last week the Sound did what it does every July — it got soft and warm in the back bays and started sorting fish by temperature. Oyster Bay, Northport, and the upper reaches of Port Jeff Harbor have all crept into the upper 70s, and that's pushed the fluke out of the shallow flats and into the green, cooler water holding in the channels and inlet mouths. That's not a bad thing. It concentrates them. The bass, meanwhile, have been doing their usual mid-Sound thing — sliding out to the rips and humps where the current still moves enough to keep bait pinned and oxygen up. Wind's been mild and variable, no real blow to speak of, which means the water's stayed clean. Clean water plus warm shallows plus a building tide cycle — that's the setup heading into this week.

And the tide cycle is the story. We're running into new-moon springs, and that means bigger swings, stronger current, and — this is the part I've been circling on the tide chart — the PM flood is now lining up with sunset. That combination hasn't happened since the June full moon, and it's exactly the kind of alignment that turns a mediocre evening tide into a genuine feeding window. High stand at Kings Point converging with last light means bait gets pushed hard against structure right as the low-light bite kicks in. Friday through Monday, July 10–13, with the tightest alignment falling on the 11th through the 13th, is where I'd spend my evenings this week. After that the tide separates from the light again and you're back to guessing.

On the bass: Stratford Shoal has been the most consistent piece of structure in the zone. Fish are stacking on the up-current side of the rip on the tail of the ebb and holding right through the tide change, then feeding hard as the new flood builds into dusk. Drifting live eels or fresh bunker chunks on fish-finder rigs in 25 to 40 feet has out-produced everything else out there — the current does the work, you just need to hold bottom contact. If you're a lure guy, white or chartreuse Fin-S Fish on 1-ounce bucktails, worked slow along the rockpile edges, has drawn strikes on the same tide stage. Middle Ground Light is fishing almost identically — same depth range, same tide preference, slightly less pressure if you want room to work a drift.

On the Connecticut side, the Norwalk Islands are where I'd point you for that sunset flood window specifically. The current funnels hard between Sheffield and Copps, and with the new-moon push behind it, bait gets jammed into those cuts right at high stand. Topwater poppers and 3-ounce Kastmasters worked through the froth at last light have been drawing bluefish blitzes and the occasional bigger bass mixed in. Charles Island is worth a look too — the rip off the tip holds porgies consistently right now, and anyone soaking sandworms or clam on a high-low rig in 15 to 20 feet has had steady, if unspectacular, action. Not a fast bite, but a reliable one, which counts for something in July.

Bluefish have shown up in decent numbers mid-Sound — schools working bunker off Eatons Neck and along the edges near Middle Ground. When you find the surface activity, it's not subtle: birds working, bait getting pushed up, blues cutting through it. Poppers, tins, anything that moves fast will draw strikes, but they don't hold long in one spot, so if you find them, fish them hard before they move on.

Fluke I'll be straight with you — it's a mixed bag right now. The bay fish that scattered with the warm-up have regrouped in the channels, and Port Jeff Harbor's outgoing tide through the mouth has been the most dependable stretch, with keepers coming on white Gulp Swimming Mullets and pink/white combo bucktails dragged slow in 20 to 30 feet. But it's patchy — some drifts you'll get two or three fish, others nothing. The ocean-side push of cooler upwelled water hasn't fully worked its way into our inlets yet, so I'd treat this as a transitional week for fluke rather than a hot one.

Weakfish, for the record, are still a ghost around here. Warm water alone hasn't been enough to bring them back in any real numbers, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. If you're targeting them specifically, you're burning gas on hope more than pattern right now.

One thing I'm watching closer than usual: the warm-water corridor that's been feeding bonito and Spanish mackerel into eastern Long Island waters is widening, and historically that spread works its way toward us by late summer. It's early — I wouldn't plan a trip around it yet — but keep an eye on bait behavior around Charles Island and the eastern Norwalk approaches over the next few weeks. That's usually the tell before the bonito show up on this side of the Sound.

For this week, my plan is simple: evenings at Stratford Shoal or the Norwalk Islands on the sunset flood, Friday through Monday, while the tide and the light are working together. If the bass don't cooperate, I've got the porgies at Charles Island as a backup that rarely fails to at least bend a rod.