The Chesapeake Bay is finally behaving like spring. A week into Maryland's reopened striper window, Anglers Annapolis store staffers Adam and Tim used the shop's weekly fishing report to walk customers through a system that is shaking off a cold start and producing fish from the bridge pilings to the eastern-shore surf.
The rockfish — Maryland's name for striped bass — opened to catch-and-keep on May 1 in designated areas of the bay. Anglers fishing the main stem south of the Patapsco River, but not the creeks and tributaries, can keep one fish a day between 19 and 24 inches. The first place that turned on, predictably, was the bridge.
"Always fish on the bridge. This time of year it gets pretty good usually," Tim said. "Get out there, fish soft crabs on pilings. You can jig for them pretty effectively. Fish shallow water baits like topwaters early in the morning on the shallower pilings, eastern and western side. As always, the rock piles always hold fish."
With the rivers themselves catch-and-release until the lower bay opens further, Tim told customers the schoolie population was the prize for shallow-water anglers. Topwater spooks, paddletails fished tight to rock piles, grass lines, docks and dock lights have all been moving fish.
Adam echoed the call. "Those schoolies have really woken up throughout the bay," he said. "A lot of your shallow water structure is going to be alive with them. Throw a topwater, throw a paddle tail. Jig your deeper structure like the bridge. They're out there and they are pretty readily available for you guys to catch. They're feeding pretty hard."
The quiet headline was the blue catfish run. Reports flooding into the shop run from Havre de Grace and the Susquehanna at the head of the bay all the way down to the Potomac, with creek mouths and deep holes producing mixed bags of blue, channel and white cats. Adam recommended high-low rigs or fish-finder rigs at deep ledges off Bodkin Point and similar structure-rich spots — and one technique most boat anglers leave on the shelf.
"Something that a lot of people don't do, which I do recommend if you're in a boat, is throw out some chum," Adam said. "Throw out a chum bucket off the back of your boat, and throw your lines in that chum slick. Just make sure you're up current so that chum is going down and fish are coming to you. That can be really, really effective for loading the cooler with blue catfish."
White perch are the loud absentee. Tim said reports up north remained thin, and he and Adam had personally drawn a blank on dock fishing in the Magothy. "We still need those water temps to come up like just a touch," Adam said.
Freshwater anglers are sitting in a sweet spot. Largemouth bass should be in full spawn this week, with smallmouth slightly ahead and already firing on the Susquehanna, Potomac and Monocacy. Adam recommended Yamamoto Ned-rig worms for bedding largemouth and square-bill cranks or chatterbaits for post-spawn smallies. Crappie are post-spawn and aggressive on Keitech paddletails, small grubs or floating flies.
The Maryland surf is also waking up. Black drum on sand-flea and clam-bait high-low rigs are still landing on Maryland and Virginia beaches, slot stripers and 40-inch cows are mixing into the wash, and the year's first kingfish — known locally as sea mullet — have landed this week. Bluefish blitzes are tracking up the Atlantic from Virginia, and back-bay anglers around Ocean City are still picking off tog, flounder and the odd rockfish from the 50 bridge.
"It's still a great time to get out there and fish the surf, especially if you're looking for some stripers," Tim said.