Left: Matt Schruefer lit up Rockfish while fishing in Prospect Bay with Ron McClain in the early morning hours of July 4th. Right: Eddie Weber found that the early morning topwater bite has already heated up in the Severn River! Eddie’s apparel brand, Severn River Angler, is one of the sponsors of our White Perch Open coming up o August 15th!
Rockfish: This is the last weekend to target rockfish before the two week closure starting on July 16th. Take advantage of the time left before the closure, because the bite has been fantastic all over the bay! The concentrations of big fish are still mostly north of the bridge from Love Point up to Hodges Bar and Pooles Island, but keeper sized fish are being caught in Kent Narrows and Prospect Bay, and down to Bloody Point, Eastern Bay, Chesapeake Beach and the Mouth of the Choptank. Live lining, jigging and chunking seem to be the way to go north of the bridge. We’ve also received great reports using peeler crab around the bay bridge pilings! As you head further south try fishing 3-4 inch paddletails on 1/4 oz jigs in shallow water. Big fish are being caught in less than 6 feet of water in the early morning hours. Look for structure and shoreline riprap. Use a steady retrieve, keeping your rod tip down, with occasional jerks. Later in the day, the fish will move out from shallow water to secondary ledges. In addition to the main bay, the early morning bite has really picked up in the rivers such as the Severn, the Magothy and the Patapsco. Both Topwater and sub-surface paddetails will work in shallow water around structure, points and shoreline!
Perch: White perch are still all over the bay over hard bottom and around structure, and in all of the river. While we still love to use Chesapeake Sabiki Rigs, and spinners like perch pounders around structure, we have found a few tips to catch monster 12-14 perch! The first is on small paddletails. Use a 3-4 inch paddletail in shallow water as described above for rockfish, and you just might pull up a big perch! The second is to use a metal jig in 10-15 feet of water. The bay bridge is a particularly good spot to do this! When it comes to bait fishing, all of our reports indicate that razor clams on a bottom rig have been outperforming every other type of bait!
Speckled Trout: The Choptank still to be the hot spot for Speckled Trout, in addition to the Tangier Sound as always. There are some reports of small speckled trout being caught further north too though, along with some Puppy Drum! Once again, 3-4 inch paddletails on 3/16, 1/4 or 3/8 oz jig heads is our method of choice for targeting them! There have also been good reports using peeler crab!
Cobia/Bull Reds: They have definitely made there way in to Maryland waters! The fishing was tough this past weekend mainly due to overcrowding because of the holiday weekend, but we expect that it will pick up in the Point Lookout area this week! A lot of fishermen are out there chumming, but remember that you can also troll surgical hoses or large spoons, or sight cast to them with bucktails or large plastics!
Mackerel and Bluefish: Mackerel are still in the southern bay out of Point Lookout, but we expect that they will be moving north any day now! Try trolling spoons on number one or two planers and kick up your trolling speed to 7-9 knots, and you just might find them! Bluefish are already making their way into our area and be caught on metal jigs or small zman paddletails!
Crabbing: The heat has slowed the crabs down a little bit, but there are still great reports coming from most of the rivers such as the Magothy, Severn, South and Chester. Razor clams are stealing the show here as well!