Middle Chesapeake Fishing Report, December 26, 2019 Update:
Happy Holidays and Merry Fishmas anglers - we hope your holidays are full of lake trips, bucktails, and winter water wonderland fishing success stories. This week, the below report is going to be a little light due to the hectic nature of the festive season and much-deserved breaks of tackle shop employees, but we still encourage you to get out and finish out 2019 with your last fish(es) of the decade. Next week when everyone’s back from vacation and we can get in touch with all our usual sources again we’ll be back with the first FishTalk fishing report of 2020!
An angler’s best bet if they want to catch dinner is heading to the Bay Bridge pilings and rocks and dropping small spoons or bull minnow on a bottom rig, so says Angler’s. This tactic is also working well throughout the tributaries in areas with deep pockets and holes, which are producing perch in steady numbers. Alltackle reported that once anglers are getting into the perch, staying on top of them is often resulting in hefty numbers.
Middle Chesapeake Fishing Report, December 19, 2019 Update:
Well folks, the striper season of 2019 is officially a wrap – though we note that the regs do specifically state that catch and release is fair play until December 31. And yes, they are still being caught here and there. Angler’s is reporting that there are still some stripers to be fought near the Bay Bridge rockpiles and we’ve also heard tell of some fish at the CCNPP from readers, though the bite isn’t exactly epic. A few specks have also been caught there in recent weeks, though, and a handful of puppy drum as well.
If you want to put fish in the cooler, a far more reliable option is to head for the bridge and jig a tandem rig with a two-ounce spoon on the bottom and a streamer or two-inch plastic a couple feet above it. White perch are around the rockpiles as well as some of the pilings. Dropping a bottom rig baited with bloodworms or grass shrimp will also get a bend in the rod.
Middle Chesapeake Fishing Report, December 12, 2019 Update:
Most area anglers are, at this point, either trailering to the Point Lookout area or joining a friend or guide who has a boat down that way. We didn’t get any reports of decent fishing north of the CCNPP this week, where anglers are reporting a few stripers and big specks but relatively low numbers and a short (tidally-based) bite-window, though we will stipulate that considering the weather few tried to fish this week in the first place. We did also hear from one reader who caught a 24-inch pickerel in the Severn, and FishTalk team member Bob Daley got a 21-inch rock near The Hill last weekend, trolling tandems with a whopping 20 ounces of weight.
That said, as of last week there were some fish up Eastern Bay as well as in the lower Choptank, and we’d certainly bet they’re still around. Getting them to bite will be a different story but the potential is absolutely there for those who make the effort to troll umbrellas and tandems down deep, or try jigging along the channel edges.
Middle Chesapeake Fishing Report, December 5, 2019 Update:
Trollers and jiggers are enjoying a decent start to December, with fish still being found around the channel edges. Angler’s Sport Center let us know that the bite between Buoy 83 and the False Channel has been hot, with plenty of fish in the 22 to 30-inch range coming from the area. Most boats are opting to troll umbrellas dressed with bucktails and sassy shads behind an inline weight. With the fish down low, keeping rigs close to bottom has been essential for catching. Many boats are also opting to up the size of their lures in hopes of catching a large striper on their way south. Jiggers are doing the same, bouncing soft plastics around nine-inches off the bottom. Alltackle in Annapolis let us know that no particular colors are standing out right now, probably because most boats are sticking with the traditional white, pearl, and chartreuse spread. Though reports of huge migratory fish are definitely not flowing in, we did see at least one major-league catch made in Eastern Bay last week, by the Heat Wave, which trolled up the 47.5-incher pictured below while trolling a Bloody Point Bait. We also heard from a second boat which got into several fish over 30-inches in the same area, though overall it was a slow day and the fish didn’t start biting until late in the afternoon.
Meanwhile in the tribs, reports of pickerel are flowing in with some regularity. Perch seem to have become much tougher to find as they’ve moved to deep-water haunts. In deeper areas, white perch have been staying close to the bottom, so make sure you have a weight on your rig heavy enough to keep it down.