Coastal Mid-Atlantic Fishing Report, March 6 Update:
The black sea bass bite during the special February season was good when boats could get out. The season is now closed until May 15th. Tautog season runs until May 15th, allowing four fish per person per day with a minimum size of 16 inches. Water temperatures around 50 degrees turn on the nearshore tautog bite, which we should be approaching this month. The larger fish will still be hanging at wreck and reef sites offshore, but keepers and a lot of smaller fish will move inshore to areas such as Cape Henlopen, the Ocean City Inlet, and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. Tautog usually offers some of the first fishing opportunities of the year along with black drum. Crab baits on bottom sweeper jigs or small octopus hooks are the best way to catch them. These fish prefer rocky bottom structure, so be prepared to lose some rigs to rocks and other snags.
Black drum should start to make their return to the surfside beaches by the end of the month, and by mid-April, the spring run should be in full swing. When surf fishing for black drum, look for current breaks and eddies where the drum will be seeking out an easy meal. The most effective surf baits for black drum are fresh soft/peeler crab, sand fleas, and fresh cut bunker. Depending on surf conditions, you may have to use heavy weights to keep baits in place, but rough surf is not a reason to keep you from fishing as the drum will still be close to shore and biting. On the inshore waters, a reader checked in after kayak fishing the back bay around Ocean City for striped bass. Water temperatures were still very cold, so they didn’t have any action. Water temperatures need to get into the upper 40s to low 50s for the striped bass to get active in the marshes of the coastal bays.