As most know, here in the northland most of us pull our boats out of the water during winter months so that they are not damaged by the ice that comes down in the fresh-water flow of the Housatonic River. Some winters, if it gets really cold, ice will also form along the edges of the River even though they are constantly exposed to salt water which is less likely to freeze than fresh. So if you're going to keep your boat in the water at those times, special care has to be taken to ensure no damage occurs...this includes sealing all through-hulls. Setting up bubblers on the bottom below the boat or finding some other way to keep the water around the boat in constant motion can prevent ice formation. Or, you can do what most do—store the boat on land.
Paperwork [and accompanying dollars] taken care of, I got the boat ready for today's adventure. Jim showed up on time as usual and we inspected the wind which had been forecast for 15-20 kts at this time of day...increasing to 30 kts later on. It was pretty calm...appeared to be about 5 kts...but it's always hard to gauge the wind's force when your tucked down in between the docks. Nevertheless, hopes high that we might be able to get out of the mouth of the River for a change [it's been a horribly windy month]—and maybe even do some fly-fishing—we headed for the mouth of the River.
Sure enough, the wind started to come up out of the west.

We hit a few places—trying to stay out of the wind—on the way to the mouth...with no successs [wind-wise or fish-wise]. But around the breakwater, we got into a small school of striped bass, and Jim latched on to the 10-lb. bluefish shown in the photo. We found another small school of stripers up in the marsh—and that was it for the day. Although we ran up river above the Merritt Parkway Bridge for a few minutes, we couldn't find any action.
The fly rods never even got out of the rod holders as the wind blew stronger and stronger, coming right up the River at probably 25-30 kts; with the temperature maybe in the high 50s, the wind chill was...chilly.
We returned to the Marina, cleaned up the boat, and said "see you" until next time.
I went to Dunkin' Doughnuts and got a large hot chocolate.
At this point we plan that Shoo-Fly 3 will be in the water until the week of December first. Hopefully we'll see the striper bite in shallow water pick up during the next few weeks. Hopefully we'll have some Indian summer days in which to take advantage of that bite.
Summary for today: Bluefish are beginning to move out of the area as the water temperature on the Sound edges down to 55 F. Stripers are beginning to move into shallow water...finding them is still hit-and-miss, but it's improving.