The Best of Fall Fishing
From Ken Lamb, son of Tackle Box founders Howard and Lena Lamb: Ken has worked at the store since its opening in 1960 and is still active as vice president, having recently conveyed the ownership to Ben and Heather Windsor. The new owners have thirty years' experience together in the store and plan to continue the business in the family tradition, providing the best possible products and customer service. There will be no changes to the frequency of the Fishing Report!
A variety of fish species are growing in numbers throughout Southern Maryland.
Rockfish are in the shallows in the salt islands mid-bay on the Eastern Shore side. The creek mouths are holding stripers on out-going tides. The shallows on rivers and creeks have stripers almost everywhere. The Patuxent has stripers for jiggers at the Patuxent River Bridge pilings. Live spot and eels around the pilings bring plenty of strikes. The Potomac has rockfish around the stone piles at Ragged Point for lure casters. Trollers are doing well at Swan Point in the Potomac. There were some beautiful stripers trolled up at Point No Point lighthouse last Sunday on the falling tide.
Rock fishing is improving daily.
Spot are everywhere; they tend to bite in the Patuxent 24/7, but the creek fishing needs a moving tide. I went to a creek off the Patuxent Sunday evening and caught spot, trout, perch, and back drum with nearly every cast using a Sabiki rig tipped with bits of bloodworm. I returned the next day at noon on a dead low tide with no movement and got skunked. One must be prudent and fish when the fish want to cooperate. The spot fishing in the Patuxent is not so tide conscious, as Capt. Bernie Shea on his charter boat was in the river at the same time and was bailing them two at a time.
Big spot, two at the time on Captain Bernie Shea's charter boat out of Solomons.
Bluefish are now in the rivers and bay. The blues in the bay are chopper size in the 7-to-8-pound range with an occasional fish ten pounds or better. The blues in the rivers and creeks are from eight inches up to three or four pounds.
Eight pound bluefish hitting surface plugs at Target ship Monday morning
Trout are in the salt islands in good numbers and some puppy drum and slot reds have shown up. The lower Potomac has some speckled trout.
Speckled trout are showing up in the shallows.
Slot reds in shallows, too.
White perch are elusive. A good catch here and there, but no consistency.
The Patuxent is loaded with big spot.
Big blues hot this week!!
Blue catfish are thick in the upper Potomac. The Patuxent has catfish above the bridge at Benedict.
The storm is going out to sea, leaving us alone. The forecast is beautiful beginning Thursday and through the weekend.
Let's go fishing!!