Tangier and Lower Shore Fishing Reports

Tangier, Pocomoke, and Lower Shore Fishing Report, September 5 Update: 

The red drum bite on the lower Eastern Shore has really picked up. Unfortunately, so has the wind. Rough waters have limited opportunities to get out in the sounds to search for the reds, but there were a few calm days this week that produced big fish. The big drum have been cruising around reef sites, ledges, and shoal areas. The best bait has been fresh chunks of bluefish, spot, croaker, and kingfish. To catch some fresh bait, all you need is a bottom rig tipped with peeler crab, bloodworms, or Fishbites. Drop down anywhere from five to 15 feet of water and you should be able to load up with plenty for an evening of chunking. Captain C.L. Marshall of Tangier Sound Charters has been putting his anglers on bull reds for the past few weeks and one trip this week stood out. His crew started off hitting the shallows and one angler caught a 25” speckled trout. After that, they moved out deeper to bottom fish and caught spot, croaker, and kingfish. With fresh bait in the cooler, they set up to drum fish and over the next few hours they boated seven red drum, one cobia, a few rays and skate, and around a dozen small sharks. Five of their red drum were citation sized.

As the weather has cooled off, the speckled trout bite has improved slightly. Sea Hawk Sports Center reports that anglers fishing the shallows are having better luck with speckled trout over the shallow grass beds. Popping corks have been working very well, or if you can get out in the early morning hours, topwater lures have been effective. Striped bass have also been in the shallows, but they are concentrated more around creek mouths, shoreline points, and other nearshore cover. We had high hopes for the return of puppy drum this year, but that has been disappointing, to say the least. There have been very few slot redfish landed on the lower eastern shore, and the better reports are from way down the shore in Virginia waters. It looks like the drum won’t make it in numbers to the Tangier region, but as fall sets in, the rockfish and speckled trout bite should really pick up.