Where To: Fishing Hotspots

Fishing hotspots in the Chesapeake Bay, Atlantic Ocean, and nearby freshwater fishing spots are detailed in specific, so you know where to go fishing.

October 17, 2024
Check out our Multispecies Fishing at Artificial Reefs on Chesapeake Bay video, and know that most of the action you'll see here came at Tilghman Reef. This site, about 1.5 miles due west of…
October 12, 2024
Epic angling awaits fishermen heading down Route 50, which you could follow into Maryland all the way from Sacramento, CA, if you so desire. Stop number one is Annapolis, then it’s on to the Choptank…
October 3, 2024
Large natural formations along with wrecks and obstructions along the lower east side of the Bay provide good structure for everything from croaker to cobia. In fact, this portion of the Bay is so…
September 8, 2024
During 1969 the USS Manta became the fourth demolished submarine to adorn the Bay’s bottom, when it was blasted into oblivion by the Navy as a bombing target and sunk somewhere in the area we report…
August 21, 2024
Catch the biggest! Catch the most! Out-fish the other guys! Most anglers want to score big on their fishing adventures, with results like these as the goal. So we go cruising for the canyons or…
August 8, 2024
Striped bass, redfish, and cobia seem to hang out around navigation buoys and markers — or, at least that’s how we ID the area they’re in. How often have we heard in fishing reports that fish are at…
July 9, 2024
Our trip out of Chincoteague began with Part I: Blackfish Bank and nearby wrecks. Now, let's look at the famed Winter Quarter Shoal. It has a number of elements that go along with its reputation as…
July 4, 2024
I love the feeling I get when I fire up my outboard and head for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, the CBBT, on a warm summer morning for a day of fishing. In that moment, the day is full of…
May 27, 2024
Visiting Chincoteague has been in the back of my mind ever since first hearing about the Virginia Capes. It’s a long way to haul my baby white whale over from Northern Virginia, and then, what’s…
April 29, 2024
Our voyage starts at the Potomac River entrance to the long Occoquan River access channel, which begins off High Point. This bay is otherwise shallow throughout. In addition to recreational boats,…
April 17, 2024
There’s no such thing as a sure thing in fishing, but in recent years targeting blue catfish has become about as close as it gets in many Maryland waterways. Channel cats have been around for…
April 9, 2024
It’s a curious thing that we might learn something about fishing structure from Edward Teach, dba Blackbeard the Pirate, or more precisely, from physical changes around his late ship, the Queen Anne’…
March 15, 2024
Most often thought of as a tourist destination, most people are shocked to learn about the vast fishing opportunities presented in the waters of the District of Columbia. Fishing alongside the…
March 2, 2024
Wrecks and structure that we might routinely pass over in the Patuxent River enroute to the Chesapeake ruins are seldom fished. But when conditions on the Bay main stem are too rough for small…
February 4, 2024
Draining the Chesapeake Bay would reveal now-submerged structural features surrounding islands, drowned islands, and remnants of eroded shorelines including fallen timber, rocks, and ruins. These…
January 11, 2024
Maybe there’s a warm day being forecast and you want to take advantage of the decent weather. Maybe you heard there’s an unexpected bite going off and you don’t want to miss out. Or, maybe you’re…
November 22, 2023
When the Office of Coast Survey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) changed the Bathymetric Data Viewer (BDV) basemap from raster to Electronic Navigation Charts (ENC), some…
October 25, 2023
Today we think of the waters off the DelMarVa Peninsula as fishing grounds for species like sea bass and flounder, but they were U-boat hunting grounds in both World Wars. Early on, it was a turkey…