Striped bass season is fully on along the western Connecticut coast, with both schoolies and keepers showing in Long Island Sound. The window from first light through about 9 AM is your high-leverage block — incoming tide, dawn solunar, and a settled south wind line up well. By midday, expect bites to slow as the sun climbs and water clarity drops the strike zone.

Buoy 44025 is reading water in the upper 50s — right in the spring striper sweet spot, where bass will commit to topwater and shallow soft plastics. Pressure has been steady the last 18 hours and the south wind at 8–10 mph keeps surface texture without churning the water column. Recent reports out of the western Sound describe steady action on schoolies with mixed fish to the high 30-inch class working bait pods near rocky shorelines and structure breaks. Tide flips from low to high through the morning, and the major solunar runs from roughly 6:00 AM to 8:30 AM — almost perfectly aligned with first light.

Pulled 1 buoy, 0 gauges, tide schedule, solunar data, 4 recent reports

• Walking the dog
  When: First-light topwater on calm-to-light-chop water
  Cast a pencil popper or similar walk-the-dog bait, give it a moment to settle, then twitch the rod tip in a steady cadence so the bait zigzags. Pause every 4–5 twitches — bites often come on the pause.
• Swing the jig
  When: Working current edges and points after the topwater bite fades
  Cast up-current of a structure break, let the jig sink while keeping a tight line, then let the current swing it through the strike zone. Most strikes happen at the end of the swing as the bait turns.
• Live eel drift
  When: Late morning, deeper water, when you want quality over quantity
  Hook an eel through the lips or just behind the head with a 6/0 hook on a fluorocarbon leader. Drift over rocky humps with a lightly weighted setup, keeping the eel in the lower third of the water column.