Cold wall breaks down, bonito corridor opens from Newport to Point Judith

Last week the wind sat mostly out of the southwest, nothing violent, just steady enough to keep a little push on the south-facing beaches and put some color in the wash off Second Beach and Matunuck. The moon was working toward new, and you could feel the tides start to build day over day — bigger swings through the Sakonnet and the breachways, more water moving on the ebb than we'd seen since the June full moon. That's the setup that matters this week: new moon springs peak Saturday through Monday, July 11-13, and that's going to put real current through Charlestown Breachway, Quonnie, and Weekapaug, along with a stronger rip off Beavertail and the Jamestown side of the East Passage. The other big story is thermal — the cold wall that's been sitting between Block Island Sound and Rhode Island Sound all June basically fell apart, warming better than ten degrees in spots. That's not a subtle shift. It means bait and predators that were pinned east of Block are free to slide west, and it's the reason I'm telling guys to start checking bonito water from Newport down to Point Judith instead of just running to the island.

Striper fishing on the rocks has been steady, not spectacular. The bite windows are tightening around the tide changes rather than running all day, which tracks with warmer, calmer water — fish feed hard on the moving water and go quiet on the slack. Best sessions have been the last two hours of the incoming through the Beavertail ledges and around the Dumplings off Jamestown, working swimming plugs and darters at first light before the sun gets on the rocks. Second Beach and the Sachuest side have given up some schoolies and a few mid-30-inch fish to guys walking peanut bunker imitations — 3/4-ounce bucktails with a white or chartreuse curl-tail trailer — along the drop where the sand meets the boulders. With the spring tide building into the weekend, I'd target the last two hours of the evening flood at Sakonnet Point, especially around the lighthouse rocks where the current wraps and stacks bait. That's historically been the best window all season for a push of better fish, and bigger tides usually wake up the bigger stripers that have been sitting deeper on the ledges.

Blackfish season's open here through mid-October, and the ledges are still producing if you're willing to fish the slack correctly. Brenton Reef and the rock piles off Beavertail are holding tog in 15 to 25 feet, but you need to be precise about timing — fish green crabs or Asian crab right on the bottom during the 20-30 minutes of true slack at the reef, because once that new moon current gets moving hard this weekend, those fish tuck under structure and won't come out to eat until it eases again. Same story at the Jamestown Bridge pilings — good numbers of keeper-class tog mixed with shorts, but the bite is a slack-tide game only.

Fluke have been doing what they usually do this time of year — sliding out of the warm upper bay and setting up in the channels and breachway mouths where the water stays cooler and more oxygenated. Charlestown Breachway and the Quonnie side have both been giving up keeper fluke on the outgoing, drifted with 4-inch white Gulp Swimming Mullets on 1/2-ounce bucktails, tipped with a strip of squid. Depths of 8 to 15 feet right in the throat of the breachway on the last three hours of the ebb has been the most consistent read. Weekapaug's produced some too, though it's more of a mixed bag — some keepers, a lot of throwbacks, and you have to grind through a lot of water some days to find a few worth keeping.

Bluefish have shown up in decent numbers chasing bait around the Newport Bridge rip and along the Jamestown shoreline — not the giant slammers yet, mostly 3 to 6 pound fish blitzing on scup and peanut bunker at first light. Metal — Deadly Dicks and Kastmasters — has been the move when they're up top, and it's been a fun distraction while waiting for the tog slack or the striper tide to turn.

Now to the bonito. Nothing confirmed on my beat yet, but with that cold wall gone and warm water pushing west, I expect the first scouts to show along the Brenton Reef edge and the rip off the Newport Bridge within the next week or two, same water that's already given up bluefish. If you're out there working metal for blues and something suddenly hits harder and runs faster than a bluefish should, don't be shocked. I'd keep a light spinning rod rigged with a small Deadly Dick or an epoxy jig on the deck just in case.

As for albies — patience. That's a September program on this stretch of coast, and nothing in the water right now says otherwise. For this week, my plan is simple: tog the slack at Brenton Reef and Beavertail early, then chase the evening flood at Sakonnet Point as the spring tide builds toward its peak Sunday and Monday. If the stripers don't show in the current lane at the lighthouse, I've got the breachway fluke drift as a backup, and that's produced enough keepers lately to make it worth the trip either way.