Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report

Rockfish

The big girls are here! We’re seeing many of the 35″+ class of fish being caught a variety of ways.

Most of the fish in Southern Maryland are already up in the rivers or moving up the rivers to spawn. Anglers in the middle bay area have had good success trolling the false channel from Love Point to Bloody Point around the edges from 30′-50′ of water. One hot area this past week was around the mouth of the Severn river. Anglers trolling that area caught nice fish in 40′ of water.

Jigging has been pretty good at the Calvert power plant. We’ve noticed it’s mainly a morning bite for the big ones. Another good place to try jigging would be around the edges of the Susquehanna flats.

Shad

We’re starting to see more Shad show up, mainly in the Southern Bay area. Not many shad have showed up in the Eastern Shore creeks yet but the bite will pick up with the warmer weather in the forecast. Anglers have had decent success catching Shad in the Potomac river. One of the hotter spots this past week was by Fletcher’s boat house.

The Shad bite in the Susquehanna River will pick up in the next week or two…depending on the weather/water temps!

Perch

The peak of the White Perch spawn is happening right now. The last push of spawning perch will be done in the next week so most of the perch are heading out the creeks and moving down river.

As always, best baits to use would be tandem shad dart rigs tipped with their favorite live bait like Grass Shrimp, Bloodworms or smaller Minnows. For deeper holes, look to use a top & bottom rig with 1/2-1oz of weight.

Freshwater / Pickerel / Bass / Crappie

Many of the area’s freshwater lakes/ponds/rivers have been on fire this past week. Not literally, of course, but the bite is definitely heating up! We’ve seen BIG Bass being caught in Loch Raven, Pickerel and Crappie being caught in Southern Maryland and it’s only getting better!

Look to use Suspending Jerkbaits, Crankbaits, Chatterbaits & Drop-shot worms in a variety of locations. Target fish on points/structure in 1′-10′ of water. Some big pre-spawn females have been caught in Loch Raven over the past week in 10′ of water.

Pickerel have been caught in 3′-5′ of water on little swimbaits over old grass beds in St. Mary’s Lake.

Show us what you caught!

We’d love to see your catch! Send your photos with some simple info (your name, location, bait/technique) and any other info you’d like to share to kevin@anglersannapolis.com. By sending your images you are giving us permission to use them online. If there are any children under 18 we need their parents permission before posting any images online!