Middle Bay Fishing Reports

Middle Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report, July 4 Update:

The Angler in Chief says lots of croaker have moved into the Middle Bay zone, enough that when casting Gulp! jigs for rockfish at some areas off the mouth of the West and South rivers, they were hooking croaker instead. Most were just undersized, but some were keepers, so hopefully this could develop into cooler-filling action. He also said that while rockfish were still proving uncooperative in the South and West Rivers, they provided solid action on chartreuse BKDs and white paddletails in the shallows of the Choptank on the first of the incoming. Most of the fish were in the slot or just under, and a few overs showed up as well. FishTalk Production Manager Zach Ditmars says the striper bite was on the bounce in the area near Annapolis, with docks producing and an evening trip late last week resulting in three slots and a couple of throwbacks. Some keeper croaker, big spot, and a few white perch are being caught in the Middle Bay tidal rivers this week. The Severn River had the best reports of keeper croaker with fish up to 12 inches coming over the rails.

Perch fishing is still very slow this season, and we had another poor report from an angler fishing the West River this week. They hit several of their usual perch spots and a few new locations but only caught two perch in a few hours of fishing. The lack of perch is starting to become concerning, and we hope that things pick up soon. There have been slightly better results from anglers fishing the tidal creeks around the lower Patuxent, but the perch fishing is still inconsistent. A reader checked in from the Pax after catching a few rockfish while casting the shallows at sunset in the Hog Point area. FishTalk contributor Adam Greenberg checked in with a good report from the eastern shore. He had an epic topwater bite recently, catching 30 or so fish from 5am to 8am on both poppers and spooks, with a handful on four-inch paddle tails as well. The perch were also thick and choking down the four-inch paddletail. The rockfish were mostly slot and over slot. However, the few caught on the paddle tails were in the 10 in - 14 in range.

Crabbing report: The AIC says crabbing in the South is strong, with good numbers of very large males (though lots of white bellies) mixed in with females and tiny crabs. Six feet of water was hot last weekend, and he noted that the limiting factor was how long your bait lasted due to the large number of undersized and female crabs.