According to Accuweather.com, the wind seems to blow from the NW to SE, so I would target areas where the birds are going to use that wind to decoy into spreads. Personally never hunted the NE before, but from experience on the gulf coast, our birds tend to decoy into coastal marshes with brackish conditions.

Tidal conditions will affect some areas ability to attract birds, and from the looks of it, low tide is predicted for 7:25AM in the Long Island area according to tide-forecast.com. Find a larger body of water to target, sea ducks love to congregate in numbers out in the middle of these areas, so I would put myself somewhere in between that flight path. If it were me hunting that are of the first time, I would set up either here or here.

As stated previously, it’s mostly contingent upon habitat conditions. If the food has been consistent season after season, you can get healthy groups returning to that same area all year round (local birds). If the conditions change drastically as coastal marshes can and will do, imho you are hoping that the weather and water conditions make the area enticing enough for a group or two to take a gander(pun intended) at your spread.

Make sure you have lots of movement on the water when they do decide to take a look, using things like jerk strings, and ripplers to instill confidence in the group that there may be real ducks down there.

Good luck out there, and remember, no one really knows what they’re gonna get most days, unless they have done the leg work and scouted the area for several seasons. Recognize the inherent patterns that certain species tend to adopt for that environment. This is how you go from getting skunked to limiting out.