New moon tide swings open a fresh evening window at the river mouth

Last week the river settled into that mid-July lull I've seen play out fifty times before. Wind stayed light out of the south, the water up around Essex and down through the mouth held steady and warm, and without much push behind the tide the current in the lower river went sluggish — more like a lake for stretches of the afternoon than the river it usually is. That kind of stillness pushes fish deep and makes them lazy. I had mornings at Saybrook Point where the breakwater bite was solid at first light and dead an hour later once the sun got up on the water. Bluefish started showing off the mouth chasing peanut bunker, which is right on schedule — they always arrive about now, a few weeks after the shad have finished their business and dropped back out to salt.

This week changes the math. We're riding into a new moon, and that means bigger swings on the tide gauges — both New London and the Kings Point read on Long Island Sound are showing the springs building through the weekend, with the flood tide lining up closer and closer to sunset each evening. That's the setup I look for every year: a bigger tide means real current through the river mouth rips again, and when that current returns, it pulls bait tight against structure and gives the stripers something to work instead of just cruising open water. The alignment peaks Saturday into Monday, July 11 through 13 — that's the first evening high-tide window we've had line up with dusk since the June full moon, and it's the best card we've been dealt all month for working the mouth after work.

On the striper side, the school fish — 18 to 24 inches, plenty of them — have been holding tight to the training walls on both sides of the river mouth and along the Saybrook breakwater riprap. Live eels drifted on the outgoing near Lynde Point Light have been the most consistent producer, fished just off bottom in eight to twelve feet, letting the current do the work rather than working the rod. Bunker chunks fished on a fish-finder rig off the flats at Great Island have also been picking up fish, especially in the last two hours of daylight — that's where I'd point a beginner or a kid with a rod, because the current there is gentler and the takes are obvious. If you want a shot at something better than schoolies, work the deep hole off Essex on the edge of the main channel with a bucktail tipped with a squid strip, dropped down and bounced slow on the up-current drift. That hole has produced fish in the high 20s to low 30s for me in past Julys when the current's actually moving, and with the new moon pushing more water through, I expect it to wake back up this week.

The bluefish have been the more reliable action for anyone who wants steady bending rods rather than a trophy hunt. They're chopping peanut bunker right at the surface in the marina channels near the DEP Marina and out toward the river mouth proper, usually in that first hour of light before the boat traffic picks up. Ava 27 jigs in bright colors — I like the green tube or bare chrome — worked with a fast retrieve through the froth have been drawing hits almost every cast when you find the blitz. These aren't giants, mostly 2 to 4 pounds, but they're aggressive and it's honest fun, especially if the stripers are being sluggish in the heat.

White perch have quietly been the save for a slow morning. The coves off Old Lyme and the calmer water near the DEP Marina have panfish stacked up in the warm shallows, and small jigs or beetle spins fished on light spinning gear in the evening will keep a rod bent for anyone patient enough to work the drop-offs slow. It's not glamorous fishing, but it's been productive when the bigger fish go quiet in the afternoon sun, and it's a good way to keep kids interested while the adults wait out the tide.

As for the shad — both American and hickory — that run finished up weeks ago. The river did its job in April and May, the fish pushed up past Essex to spawn, and by now they've dropped back downriver and out to sea. I know some folks keep asking through the summer, and I get it, that run is the heartbeat of this river for a lot of us, but there's nothing to report there until next spring. No sense pretending otherwise.

Looking ahead, I'd put my time in Saturday evening through Monday, right on that new-moon flood tide lining up with sunset. If the current comes back through the mouth the way the tide charts suggest, I expect the striper bite at the breakwater and training walls to sharpen up considerably over what we saw last week's slack water. If it doesn't materialize — if the wind kicks up out of the southwest and muddies the outgoing — I'd fall back to the bluefish blitzes early and the perch coves in the evening, because those have been steady regardless of what the tide's doing. Either way, after two weeks of sleepy current, this is the first stretch that's given me a real reason to be back down at the mouth with eels in the bucket.