Connecticut River Mouth (Old Saybrook and Old Lyme)

Where the Connecticut River meets Long Island Sound, Old Saybrook and Old Lyme offer something rare on this coast: plenty of public shore access. Anglers soak bait from piers, walls and causeways for striped bass, bluefish, fluke and flounder, and boaters work the rocks, rips and islands of the lower river. Just upriver, Hamburg Cove has some of the earliest spring stripers in New England.

When to fish

• Mid-March to mid-April: schoolie stripers in Hamburg Cove, before the action spreads downriver. River runoff sets the timing; a muddy spring freshet slows things down.
• Spring: stripers enter the river, and the Baldwin Bridge pier can be very good.
• Late spring: bass move onto the rocks and flats of the lower river.
• Summer: fluke and snapper blues along the causeways, with bass and blues after dark. Late summer brings bluefish to North Cove at first light and late afternoon.
• Fall: On The Water's western Sound captain calls river mouths his favorite ambush points for big bass leaving the Sound from mid-September, especially on a falling tide.
• December 1 to March 31: from winter 2026-27, stripers are catch and release only.

Where to fish

From shore:

• Baldwin Bridge State Boat Launch pier (Old Saybrook): a fishing pier at the big state launch under I-95.
• Saybrook Point (park at Fort Saybrook): soak chunks for bass and big blues, or sandworms and squid strips for fluke. The wall is high, so bring a long-handled net. It's one of DEEP's Enhanced Opportunity Shore Fishing sites.
• South Cove causeway (Route 154): snapper blues and fluke in summer, bass and blues at night; also an Enhanced Opportunity site.
• Ferry Landing State Park and the DEEP Marine Headquarters boardwalk (Old Lyme): a fenced bulkhead and boardwalk running south under the railroad bridge, where big bluefish hunt the eddies around the pilings. DEEP lists the boardwalk as temporarily closed for bridge construction.

By boat:

• Hamburg Cove: sheltered and rock-free, about four miles above the I-95 bridge; the land around it is private, so it's boat-only.
• The lower river: the Wood Lot (the drop from 4 to 10 feet where the Back River joins), Gibraltar Rocks, Sodom Rocks near buoy 10, the rocks and small marsh island near buoy 8, and the rips at Griswold Piers. On the flood, work the Great Island shore north of Poverty Point, and Great and Calves islands.
• The river mouth: cast to the sandbars and breakwaters on the ebb.

How to fish it

From shore it's mostly bait on the bottom: worms in spring, then chunked bunker or mackerel for bass and blues, and worms or squid for flounder and fluke. By boat, cast soft plastics or topwater plugs across the drop-offs and boulder fields while drifting with the current. In Hamburg Cove the schoolies move around daily; The Fisherman's guide slow-trolls small lures to find a school, then anchors and casts small metals, jigging spoons or soft grubs, often with a small fly on a dropper ahead of the lure. In fall current, darters and a slim teaser ahead of a bigger lure are On The Water's picks.

Getting there

The Baldwin Bridge launch (220 Ferry Road, Old Saybrook) is open year-round for trailered and cartop boats, and the river has speed limits and slow-no-wake zones, including between the Saybrook breakwaters. Ferry Landing State Park is off Route 156 via Ferry Road in Old Lyme, with no parking fee and after-hours parking for anglers. The I-95 bridge divides the marine and inland zones: you need a marine waters license at the mouth and an inland license upriver, including in Hamburg Cove.