Summertime and the Fishing Is Easy

Bottom fishermen are filling their coolers with medium to large spot in the mouth of the Patuxent all the way to St. Leonard's Creek. By the Fourth of July they should be all the way to Benedict. The spot love bloodworms, which are expensive and scarce this week as digging conditions in Maine were very bad with heat wave and tide timing. Excellent bloodworm substitutes are Lug worms, Fish Bites, peeler crab, night crawlers, razor clams, and squid.

Capt. Bernie Shea is loading up on big spot in the Patuxent!

Spot are also caught in numbers in the Potomac around Ragged Point and St. George Island. The Point Lookout area is loaded with tiny spot and croaker. The bigger spot are further up the Potomac to escape the porpoise schools that eat them like candy. There are hungry porpoise in the Patuxent too.

Patuxent rockfish trolled up on the Shea D Lady this week.

White perch, puppy drum, slot reds are in the shallows for lure casters, but the heat has made a small window of really good activity at dawn and dusk. A high tide with moving water is always good. Breton Bay in the Potomac seems to have an excellent run of red drum and white perch happening now.

Plenty of rockfish, too.

Cobia are now active in the bay south of the Target Ship. Several good catches have been made by experienced captains either sight casting or drifting live spot. Live eels are good but come into their own a little later in the season when they are essential. Trollers using big surgical eels are getting cobia.

Greg Tippett has found cobia near Smith Point this week.

There are schools of big bluefish (4 to 6 pounds) marauding the lower bay, but they play hide and seek. The guides that fish everyday are doing well trolling spoons and surgical eels; blue and purple eels worked well this week.

Capt. Greg Buckner is live lining spot for rockfish and both blue and flathead catfish in the northern regions of the bay. Getting plenty of white perch and spot too. Never a dull moment.

Rockfish are up the rivers and in the northern bay from the Choptank to Baltimore Harbor. Live liners in the vicinity of the Bay Bridge find hot action and in addition to stripers there are hefty, tasty catfish in the mix. The mid-bay was tough going for rockfish hunters this past week in the heat and wind.

Ellie Speed shows off a catch of white perch from a creek off the Patuxent.

Crabs love this hot weather and are eager to eat the bait in the crab pots off the piers of waterfront property owners. They love alewives, razor clams and spot. Hand trap users and chicken-neckers are doing well.

The crappie run in St. Mary's Lake continues with great fishing. Plenty of bass, bluegill, and pickerel too.

There are some rain and cooler temperatures forecast for this week, so let's go fishing!!

Brannen Scrivener, on left, helped his friends catch a huge stringer of crappie at St. Mary's Lake last Tuesday. Phenomenal crappie run there, now.