CT River Honoring Veteran's Striper Tourny

CT River Honoring Veteran's Striper Tourny - What a day!  I can't remember when I've fished so hard for such little return.  It was definitely a day of fishing as opposed to catching.  I went back and forth over whether to fish out of Wethersfield or down at the mouth of the river.  I ultimately decided to head south, despite all of the nice fish Slinger and Lung have been posting from the Hartford area.  While the southern part of the river has been more miss than hit, I was hoping that a few really big linesiders would be lurking along Great Island.  Conditions were nice, overcast with the largest full moon of the year hidden behind the clouds as I launched just before 4:40am from Salmon Cove.  I ran south, prospecting at a few places where I'd had success in the past, but had no luck.  Picked up my first schoolies around the RR bridge by the DEP headquarters.  There was a ton of bait in the mouth.  At various times I had bunker and herring breaking all around me, but despite throwing just about everything I had (artificials only, no live baits allowed), didn't find any stripers.  I covered Great Island, the mouth, across to South Cove (We couldn't fish past the breakwall) and back up to the bridges with swim baits, soft plastics, tube and Gulp worms, etc.  The guys out fishing live baits weren't doing any better.  I finally got fed up and called it quits a bit after noon.  My "big fish" was only 24-25", though the leading catch at that time was just 31".   I guess the place to be was actually out in the LIS, where guys were hammering stripers all weekend.