Fishing Still Strong

Trollers are using surgical eels and small spoons. The spoons are used with planers and are meant to get strikes from mackerel too, but the mackerel seem to be departing fast for the ocean.

Congratulations Bobby Graves of Salisbury for catching the record-breaking 6.44lb fish in the Chesapeake Bay near Bloodsworth Island on September 17. He caught the impressive pompano while fishing for spotted sea trout using soft crab for bait.

Rockfish will respond to the cooling water and begin the fall school up. They will feed on top, breaking into bait fish. There are rockfish for shore casters on top water and swimming plugs, bucktails, and paddle tail jigs.

Cobia stayed until season ended last week. Blues aplenty.

There was a report of a 40-inch striper that took a top water plug at Fishing Point in the Patuxent. The huge fish was released, but a big rockfish like that, caught by a shore fisherman, is extraordinary. The fish's smaller counterparts in the 18-to-24-inch range are plentiful; 31 inches is the recently imposed maximum.

Ken Lamb with a string of Sunday afternoon perch.

White perch are in the creeks and will take small spinner baits like Beetle Spins and Perch Hounders. I went Sunday afternoon in a small creek off the Patuxent and brought home eleven decent sized fish. However, the puppy drum bite was fantastic, I did not keep count, but estimate I landed about 35. Many were 14 to 15 inches, very powerful heavy fish. Slot reds measuring in the 18-to-27-inch requirement are being caught steadily by anglers targeting them along with stripers in the rivers and bayshore. There is a restriction of one of these fish per day in Maryland waters. However, in the Potomac the upper size restriction is 25 inches, and five are allowed per day. This appears to be a little-known fact.

Breaking bull reds off Point Lookout 2018. It looked like this 360 degrees. Those dark splotches above the white water are Spanish mackerel trying to get away.

The schools of big bull reds are active in the bay. Trollers and lure casters score, but there is no consistency to the catch. If you get in the middle of a breaking school of about a thousand of these huge creatures in a feeding frenzy, you will never forget it. This happens in the bay somewhere just about every day this time of year.

Capt. Bernie Shea and a former President lookalike show off jumbo spot.

The spot fishing is still red hot in the mouth of the Patuxent. Capt. Bernie Shea on the Shea-D-Lady has his parties catching the jumbo spot two at the time. This will last until mid-October.

Capt. Bernie is loading the fish box daily out of Solomon's. Plenty of Spot until mid-October. Book a trip now!

Freshwater fishing is fine with bass, bluegill, crappie and pickerel hitting lures and live minnows at St. Mary's Lake. Bluegill love live crickets, too.