Stormy Weather, Good Fishing
Summertime striped bass fishing closures are here.
Summertime striped bass fishing closures are here.
The Potomac is closed until August 20. This means no direct targeting. Season reopens Aug. 21 and lasts until December 31. Nineteen inch minimum and twenty four inch maximum.
Erick Packard with rockfish from mouth of St. Jerome's.
Trout, too.
The Maryland portion of the bay and its tributaries are closed for rockfish from July 16 to July 31. Season reopens August 1 and lasts until December 10th. the same 19 inch minimum and 24 inch maximum is the slot.
Keeper hardhead (croaker) have moved into Breton Bay off the Potomac. Last Friday evening on the running tide they were wide open.
The leader for July in the big perch contest at The Tackle Box.
Spot fishing in the Patuxent is exceptional. Eating size spot are now prevalent. Moving tides are best. Croaker and white perch are mixed in with the spot.
Keeper sized croaker (9 inches) have invaded Breton Bay in the Potomac. Croaker, spot and perch are all the way up to the Leonardtown shoreline.
Flounder took cast lure in the mix of rockfish, trout, and bluefish just outside St. Jerome's Creek.
Bluefish are now concentrated near the Target Ship in good size. An experienced captain told me this week that he had never seen so many blues. Snapper blues are biting off the plastics of lure casters in the shallows. These 6 to 8 inch bluefish are everywhere and have razor sharp teeth and powerful jaws, Be careful!!
Trollers are using surgical hose (eels) for the bluefish and for cobia. blues also take small to medium sized spoons. Anglers can choose to use planers or in line trolling sinkers to troll. Sight casters are using Gotcha lures, and jigs and spoons of all sorts for the bluefish.
Riley, Hunter, Maverick, and Walker Tippet landed this Cobia last week near Tangier Island.
Matt Tippet with a trophy cobia from below the Target ship. Cobia are slowly arriving.
Cobia fishermen are getting mixed results with live eels, cut bait, and chum lines. Sight casters are using a variety of big jigs designed for this purpose. There are plenty of the big fish further south; we hope they will come in force to our waters soon.
Captain Bernie Shea's party with their catch of bluefish last Friday.
The bull reds are hard to find at the moment. There have been encounters with big schools of breaking fish, but there is nothing consistent about them so far this season.
Good catches of speckled trout and rockfish have been reported by kayakers at Point Lookout in Cornfield Harbor. The slot redfish have yet to move into our waters. They are reported one river south in the Rappahannock.