Three rainy weekends in a row haven’t hurt the fishing in Southern Maryland. If anything, the weather has helped, says Ken Lamb of The Tackle Box in Lexington Park.
“The big news is that the rockfish are now schooled up and active,” Lamb wrote in his weekly report. “The wind, rain and cool is rockfish weather.”
Breaking fish in the Patuxent
Stripers were breaking at Point Patience and Myrtle Point in the Patuxent on Sunday morning, Lamb said. They were hefty fish, 23 to 25 inches, “hungry, fat and eager to bite.”
The Potomac was producing stripers in the shallows on cast lures before the storm, though they were harder to find. Breaking fish just south of Ragged Point were mostly undersized, but the rocks at Ragged Point held some big stripers that hit blue-backed Bomber Wind Cheaters. The Tackle Box crew caught a couple of keepers there last Wednesday.
Anglers keeping fish should check the size limits. In Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries, the fall recreational striped bass season runs Sept. 1 through Dec. 5, with a limit of one fish per person per day measuring 19 to 24 inches, under rules the state adopted this spring. Many of the Patuxent’s breaking fish fall inside that slot. The Potomac’s main stem is managed separately by the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, so check its rules before keeping fish there. The state’s striped bass regulation maps show which rules apply where.
Bottom fishing, blues and crabs
Bottom fishing still produces spot, though mostly small and medium ones now that the big spot have headed for the Atlantic. There are lots of undersized speckled and gray trout, but enough legal ones to keep it interesting, Lamb said, along with rockfish, small blues and whiting. Capt. Bernie Shea is finding all kinds of bottom fish daily out of Solomons.
Trollers chasing big bluefish are doing very well on the Middle Grounds below buoy 72. The blues run 6 to 8 pounds and like trolled spoons and surgical eel lures. Capt. Greg caught limits of blues every day the wind let boats get out last week.
Catfish are biting too, near the Benedict bridge on the Patuxent and off Cobb Island on the Potomac. Anglers are also reeling in puffers, which Lamb said are unusually numerous this year.
Crabbing is very good, with waterfront crab potters “loading up on big crabs.”
Cooler days ahead
Lamb’s forecast called for summer-like warmth early this week, followed by a front that drops temperatures into the 50s and 60s by the weekend. That kind of cool-down typically keeps the fall rockfish bite going.
Last week, Lamb said fall fishing had hit its stride on the Potomac, Patuxent and Bay. The state’s Maryland Fishing Report has more from around the Bay.
“Be good to yourself,” Lamb says. “Go fishing.”
