Middle Bay Fishing Reports

Middle Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report, November 12 Update:

Striped bass fishing has been a bit of a roller coaster following last week's weather front, with some areas producing quality fish while others have gone surprisingly quiet. The Bay Bridge continues to stand out, but anglers are also finding some promising action around Tolley Point and Poplar Island. White perch have schooled up in several tidal rivers, although finding them may require covering plenty of water and moving between spots.

The AIC says this year’s Fish For a Cure tournament was a fun one despite 20- to 25-knot gusting winds. Boats fishing at the Bay Bridge reported very good rockfish catches (with one boat live-lining saying they caught around 50 fish, and another that was eeling catching so many that they went through three dozen eels) with most of the fish in the slot or just over it to about 26”. Early this week, an angler jigging BKDs on one-ounce heads at the pilings also filed a good report, with about a dozen fish caught. Sizes were mixed with some unders, several fish in the slot, and one just over it. Team FishTalk/PropTalk found the shallows from Franklin Manor to Deale completely deserted during the tournament, a big turn-around from last week and likely the result of the front that moved through (and pushed out a LOT of water) last Friday night. Fishing at the CCNPP they encountered an excruciatingly slow bite, however, grinding it out, they ended up taking second place in the tournament (WOOHOO!) with a pair of fish over 26” and one at 28”. Another boat fishing there said they had caught about “one fish an hour” up to 26”. Boats fishing Eastern Bay reported few fish and those that were caught were mostly small ones, with the shallows on that side of the Bay also more or less deserted after the storm moved through. A few days after the tournament, a subscriber confirmed that Eastern Bay is full of little fish, but he was unable to find anything over 16”. One angler who fished Poplar reported that there were some fish along the rocks, and they landed a couple in the slot, but the wind was so strong when they were fishing that much of the island was unfishable or very difficult to fish.

A couple reader reports came in of slot rock and just-overs showing up slightly east of Tolley Point again, in the same area where they were present a couple of weeks ago. The best bite is right at sunset, when the fish have been coming up top and breaking water for a brief frenzy of action just as the sun goes down. However, one angler who fished there and at Thomas Point one afternoon and evening early this week said he never saw a thing and had zero bites, so it seems these fish are very on-again/off-again.

White perch have schooled up and when you can find a ball of them they’re in a biting mood. A reader fishing the Severn near Round Bay found a pile of perch while casting small spinnerbaits, with most in the 12” range. Another angler (who we know to be very good at catching perch) tried fishing many different spots in the Severn and came up blank all morning. After finally locating a patch of fish at around 1:00 they then had solid action for an hour on perch in the 10” to 12” range, so if you want to find perch right now, it’s probably a good idea to stay on the move and try lots of spots rather than focusing on one area. The Tackle Box says strong numbers of perch are hitting Chesapeake Sabikis tipped with grass shrimp, lug worm, or blood worm in the lower Patuxent. The deep edges of oyster bars in 25’ to 35’ have been producing fish, and they also noted that some perch can be had fishing the pilings of the bridge at Solomons.

Middle Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report, November 6 Update:

Rockfish remain spread throughout the Middle Bay, with some impressive bird shows producing plenty of undersized fish while anglers working structure are finding better-sized keepers. Light-tackle jigging continues to produce around shoreline structure and shoals, and white perch are providing some additional action around the Bay Bridge and upper tributaries.

The AIC says he found a lot more dinks than he would have expected recently, and slot fish were harder to come by, but other anglers have been encountering decent numbers of rockfish in and just over the slot in the area. Thomas Point light, the north-west side of Poplar, and the mouth of Eastern Bay all had bird shows last weekend with some very large schools of stripers under them, but all of those fish were in the 15” to 18” range. Anglers fishing structure along the bayfront and at Thomas Point shoal caught fewer but bigger fish and FishTalk’s Zach Ditmars reported catching six in the slot plus a few unders and one over while casting jigs in the shallows. That was despite very low water with an outgoing tide. The AIC also reported finding some fish over structure in six to eight feet off the mouth of the West River, but those were all just under or well under the slot. A few fish were also in the shallows at Thomas Point Shoal and although the ones reeled up to the FishTalker were on the small side, they saw a boat fishing there bring in a nice slot fish in the 23” to 24” range. Gray paddletails and avocado-colored BKDs did the bulk of the catching, but there were also some topwater bites in shallower areas.

Reports Editor Dillon Waters took a trip up to the Bay Bridge late last week to see what was biting. He got on the water before sunrise and started casting jigs to bridge pilings and around the rock islands. After fishing several pilings and both islands without a bite, he moved to some pilings on the east side of the westbound span in 30’ of water and caught two slot fish, both around 22”. There were several charter boats working the bridge and there didn’t seem to be many fish being caught. After boxing one of the rockfish, he moved over to oyster bottom near Sandy Point in around 20 feet of water to try for white perch. Bottom rigs tipped with bloodworms provided a steady bite for white perch in the seven to 10” range for about an hour until the incoming tide died out. During that time, he boxed 15 eater-sized white perch. Another reader checked in with a report from late last week. They launched from Chesapeake Beach and fished several spots from there up to Shady Side. Most of the spots had fish, but a few turned up blank. They report that the Holland Point area was dink city, but there were plenty of fish around. After making a move to deeper water, they found a better class of fish, catching around 10 in the 21” to 25” range. 

The Tackle Box reports that breaking rockfish can be found in the Patuxant River from Bennedict to Cedar Point. The fish aren't breaking at all times, but they are popping up at some point just about every day with the best odds at sunrise and sunset. They said that when the fish stop breaking trollers are doing best, especially those pulling small umbrellas and Spoonbrella rigs. The Tackle Box also mentioned that white perch are shooling up in the deeper parts of the lower Pax, and there are a few lingering weakfish, speckled trout, and spot still around.

We also got a report from Hallocks-Grace Charters that they also found some white perch around the Bay Bridge. They started their trip by catching a limit of rockfish by live-lining spot at some of the bridge pilings, then they moved to oyster bottom north of the bridge and found a steady, but not on fire, perch bite. Bottom rigs tipped with bloodworms were again the ticket for perch. We have also heard several reports that the perch bite has been good at the mouth of the Patapsco River. Charter boats and recreational boats are catching them in around 20’ of water between Fort Smallwood Park and Hickory Point. As we get later in the season, the perch will move to slightly deeper water, but this bite should last for several more weeks.

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