Spanish mackerel are flooding the Chesapeake Bay, and trollers are hitting their 15-fish daily limit most days the weather cooperates, according to Ken Lamb of the St. Mary’s TackleBox in Lexington Park. Maryland’s recreational limit for Spanish mackerel is 15 fish per person per day, with a 14-inch minimum size. Lamb expects the run to continue into October.
The fish can be picky about lure color day to day, Lamb said, but flashy lures — Drone, Clark, and Hardhead Customs — generally produce. Anglers can also cast to schools when they’re concentrated, and the mackerel make excellent light-tackle sport. As the run pushes north, anglers fishing out of the Patuxent are finding fish on the Chinese Muds and along the drop-off on the bay’s eastern side between buoys 76 and 77. The ship’s channel from the Patuxent River to Smith Point is loaded with fish, Lamb reports.
as good as it gets.
Bluefish are widespread, with the biggest schools ranging from the Targets south to Smith Point. Small cobia are mixed in, hitting trolled surgical eel lures.
Bottom fishing remains excellent, with spot and croaker plentiful in both the Patuxent and Potomac rivers — croaker are even showing up from shore in surprising numbers. Surfcasters in the Fishing Point Hollow area reported limiting out at 25 fish per person using bloodworm pieces, which Lamb says are worth the expense given the numbers coming in.
Trout and bluefish are active in the Cornfield Harbor area near Point Lookout, with lure casters also picking up rockfish there. The tidal Potomac reopened to rockfish targeting Aug. 21 after a summer closure, and the rest of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay and tidal tributaries follow suit Sept. 1, when the recreational striped bass season resumes with a one-fish daily limit and a 19-to-24-inch slot, running through Dec. 5. This year’s closure structure shifted to all of August, rather than the multi-week July closures used in recent seasons.
White perch fishing is improving as water temperatures cool. Puppy drum are around but in smaller numbers than in past seasons — Lamb attributes this to a die-off he says occurred during a cold snap in late 2024 that he believes affected red drum as far south as South Carolina and Georgia; that specific event wasn’t independently verifiable through available records, though periodic winter cold-kills are a documented pattern in the Chesapeake. Anglers targeting red drum should also note a recent regulation change: Maryland’s daily bag limit is now three fish, up from one, within an 18-to-26-inch slot.
Cobia and bull redfish round out the mix and can turn up nearly anywhere in the bay this time of year.
