CTFishTalk.com: Connecticut River - Baldwin Bridge 11/07 - Connecticut River Reports ( CT River Reports ) - A Community Built for Connecticut Fisherman.

PECo · Joined: 06 Oct 2009 Posts: 5203 Location: Avon, CT

I must be a glutton for punishment, because I headed back down to the mouth of the Connecticut River, again, today. And I talked Wanna Fish (aka Carl) into joining me. We planned to meet at the Baldwin Bridge Boat Launch at 6:30 am.

I arrived at the ramp a little bit early, at 6:15 am, and the parking lot was completely empty. I'd never seen THAT before. So, I parked on the ramp:

As I prepared to launch the boat, I began to wonder why nobody else was there. The thought crossed my mind that I might have missed a memo about no fish being in the river. There wasn't one, was there?!?!

The weather forecast was for air temperatures from 41 to 51 in the morning, winds out of the north-northwest up to 10 miles per hour, and early sunshine giving way to full clouds. For once, the forecast was spot on. The low tide hit Saybrook Jetty at 6:05 am and high tide at 12:30 pm. The water temperature was in the low 50s. I saw 52 degrees the one time I looked. Although the water was still really dirty and brown, there was a lot less debris floating down the river than I saw last week.

Carl arrived just before I launched the boat and we quickly headed downriver. I call this photo, "Sunrise Over Carl":

After we passed the railroad bridge, we saw. . . nothing. There weren't any birds in the air. At all. Uh-oh! As we headed down the channel next to the west flats, we saw that the water level was low; really, REALLY low:

Usually, that rock pile is under the surface just enough to take out unsuspecting boaters' lower units.

We headed down to Dickerson's Pier, which is a submerged rock pile just upriver from the Saybrook Jetty marina. Although we marked some crap on the bottom, it wasn't fish. It was just crap; mostly leaves and weeds.

We decided to head further out toward the Sound and spotted bait breaking over a wide area. Unfortunately, it appeared to be feeding, not fleeing, and it was unmolested by birds. We wandered around the widely spread bait looking for any that might be in distress, but, no, there were no signs of any stripers or blues.

Since the wind was blowing out of the north-northeast, we decided to check out the beach to the west of Saybrook Point. The water was a lot calmer there and there was still bait breaking all over a wide area, but there were still no signs of any stripers or blues. The bait was so thick that we soon began snagging up the occasional adult bunker:

At one point, I hooked into something that quickly swam past the boat, but we never really got a good look at it before it spit my Daiwa SP Minnow. Carl thought it looked a little bit like a blue, but it might have just been a really feisty, foul-hooked bunker.

We checked out the shore to the east of the mouth, but saw nothing but non-fishing birds and breaking waves. We actually started heading east to Hatchett Reef, but I noticed that my fuel level needle was bouncing between a quarter tank and empty, so we turned around and headed back up the river.

We tried fishing around Dickerson's Pier and headed across the still shallow flat to the inlet on the west bank, but didn't hook anything but the bottom. We headed back out to the edge of the flat. Nada.

At 11:30 am, we called "Lunchtime!" and headed back to the ramp. That was probably the best decision we made all day:

I'll be out of town for the rest of the week, but when I get back out on the water, it'll be in the Housy, not the Connecticut.
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