The Chesapeake Bay and its tidal rivers are loaded with summer species right now, according to Ken Lamb of St. Mary’s Tacklebox in Lexington Park, who says the current Spanish mackerel run is the best he can remember.
Mackerel are thick in the shipping channel from Chesapeake Beach down to the Bay Bridge Tunnel, with the southern end of that stretch producing best. Trollers pulling shiny spoons behind planers or in-line sinkers are filling coolers, Lamb said, with Clark, Drone, Hard Head Custom, and Captain John’s spoons all working — Captain John’s Spoonbrella rig in particular. Some anglers are skipping the troll entirely, casting spoons on spinning gear directly at breaking fish.
Bluefish in the 3-to-8-pound range have also been thick, breaking just below Hooper’s Island Light near the oyster sanctuary over the weekend; one angler told Lamb she counted roughly 50 boats hooked up simultaneously in a single blitz. Cobia in the 33-to-36-inch range — still short of the legal minimum — are mixing in with those blues on surgical eel lures. Anglers chumming with live eels and cut bait below the Target Ship are finding legal-size cobia, though Lamb describes it as hit-or-miss.
Both Maryland and Virginia currently require cobia to measure at least 43 inches before anglers can keep them — Virginia raised its own minimum from 40 to 43 inches in 2025 to match Maryland’s existing standard, so the two states are now aligned rather than working under different rules.
Bottom fishing remains strong for spot, especially in the Patuxent, where creek mouths are holding smaller fish easily caught on Sabiki rigs tipped with bloodworm and deeper water is producing spot in the 8-to-10-inch range. The Potomac has spot as well, plus some of the best croaker action near Ragged Point and St. George Island, mixed with small trout and undersized juvenile black drum.
With blues and mackerel this week. Stopped on way in and caught a cooler of big spot
Saturday afternoon. Approximately 50 boats working in huge school all hooked up.
A new Maryland red drum regulation now allows anglers to keep three fish per day in an 18-to-26-inch slot, up from the previous one-fish limit, as part of a coastwide rule change required by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. Puppy drum are showing up in creeks and rivers alongside white perch, though most are still a few inches under the legal minimum. Bull red drum in the bay, meanwhile, are running well over the 26-inch slot ceiling and must be released.
White perch numbers remain below what anglers are used to, a decline Lamb says has him and others searching for answers. He also flagged an unfamiliar “silver perch” showing up in catches, which he guessed might be a freshwater fish. It isn’t: silver perch (Bairdiella chrysoura) is a small, native member of the drum family that lives year-round in the middle and lower Chesapeake Bay, though it’s uncommon north of Baltimore — likely explaining why it’s a new sight for some Southern Maryland anglers.
Striped bass season reopens in the tidal Potomac on Friday, Aug. 21, while the Chesapeake Bay portion of the season stays closed until Sept. 1. Anglers targeting other species have reported very little incidental rockfish bycatch since the closure began, with the fish apparently holding in shallow water.
Blue catfish remain active and eager in both the Potomac and Patuxent, and freshwater anglers are doing well at St. Mary’s Lake, where crappie, bass, pickerel, yellow perch, bluegill, and the occasional white perch are all biting.
