CTFishTalk.com: Connecticut River - Baldwin Bridge 03/03 - Connecticut River Reports ( CT River Reports ) - A Community Built for Connecticut Fisherman.

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

Unfortunately, this is more of a sightseeing report than a fishing report. Confused

TurtleKiss (aka Kira) and I decided to go fishing on Sunday. I let her choose between the lower Housatonic River in Shelton or the lower Connecticut River and Hamburg Cove from the Baldwin Bridge State Boat Launch in Old Saybrook. I think that Kira wanted us to redeem ourselves from our failure to get even a nibble the last time we fished the Connecticut, so she chose the lower Connecticut and Hamburg Cove. Neither of us had ever launched at the Baldwin Bridge ramp before:

It's a really nice facility with very good protection from the current at the ramp:

When we launched at 7:30 am, the air temperature was below freezing, the wind was blowing briskly at 10 miles per hour from the north and the sky was completely overcast. Light snow was even falling. Yeap, it was cold out there. Wink

Low tide was at 9:01 am, so we fished both sides of it. Right after we launched, we headed upriver to Hamburg Cove, which is about a 5-1/2 mile run. For the first time ever, I actually got some use out of the very basic charts that came with my Humminbird 798ci HD SI fish finder. It helped me to navigate from one channel marker to the next on the unfamiliar stretch of river. When we entered the shallow mouth of Hamburg Cove, low tide was fast approaching and we had to stay in the channel. Once you enter the cove, however, the channel markers are little more than beat up, dirty, three foot long green sticks that are bobbing mostly horizontally and almost invisibly in the water. Rolling Eyes

I strayed from the channel by 15 feet and almost grounded the boat on a sandbar. Once we got into the main body of the outer cove, however, it deepened to 14 feet where the cocktail/keg party boats moor during the Summer. We hit a very reliable Summertime chain pickerel spot as we worked our way along the channel toward the inner cove, but didn't get any action. To make a long story short, we went through the channel to the inner cove, up to Reynolds' Garage and Marine, back through the channel to the outer cove, back through the channel to the inner cove, back through the channel to the outer cove and out of the cove altogether, and marked only one fish with the finder in the channel between the inner and outer coves. Only ONE! Shocked

Yeap, the cove that last year at this time was producing sunnies, yellow perch, white perch, chain pickerel, largemouth bass and striped bass, was almost totally devoid of fish. Confused

Plus, as late as 8:30 am, it was still so cold that the guides on our rods were freezing solid:

At 10:15 am, I told Kira that we should head back to the ramp, put out and put back in somewhere else. On our way downriver, we tried to enter the cove at Essex/Deep River, but it was so shallow that the lower end of my outboard motor hit a rock, stump or sandbar on the way in, even though I had the motor trimmed up fairly high. Shocked

We quickly gave up on checking out the cove, resumed our run back to the ramp and put out at 10:45 am.

Once again, I let Kira choose where we would go. Her options were the lower Housatonic in Shelton, the Connecticut at Haddam Meadows in Haddam, the Connecticut at Charter Oak in Hartford or the Connecticut at the Bissell Bridge Boat Launch in Windsor. She chose theConnecticut at the Bissell Bridge in Windsor, so we headed back north up Route 9. I'll post a report about that part of our day, later. Very Happy

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