Enjoy the Ides of October

Patuxent, Potomac and the bay shorelines have fish for lure casters at dusk and dawn on sunny days. Overcast and rainy days have fish striking all daylong. The mouths of creeks and inlets on the Patuxent are producing stripers and puppy drum and white perch for beach fishermen, who have discovered that a 1/4 ounce white Beetle Spin is irresistible to the fish.

Small rockfish and puppy drum are everywhere.

White perch are still in the creeks for lure casters and bottom fishermen. Crabs are big and heavy and will invade your crab pots baited with fresh alewives. They will stay active until mid-November and are just as good to eat now as they were on the Fourth Of July, but bigger and meatier.

Mike Bowen shows off a catch of perch that took an orange Beetle Spin tipped with a bit of Fishbite.

Trollers are using small umbrella rigs, tandem bucktails, and paddle tail jigs to get respectable results in the rivers. There are bluefish too in good size.

Alex with typical striper from the Patuxent. Shore fishermen at dusk and dawn are loading up casting all sorts of lures to hungry fish.

Rockfish are schooled up in the Potomac between Ragged Point and the 301 bridge. They will begin their migration down the river as the water cools. Breaking fish will stretch from the Triangle in the bay near the mouth of the Potomac to Smith Creek by December.

Allen with nice rock from the Patuxent, caught casting popper to the shoreline.

The bass, crappie and Pickeral are biting in St. Mary's Lake and in the local ponds.

Spot, trout, and croaker still in the Patuxent. Capt Bernie on the Shea-D-Lady got these Sunday on Bloodworms under poor conditions enduring high winds.