Middle Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report, October 3 Update:
The Angler in Chief says shallow-running 4” blue/silver stickbaits continue to out-perform white paddletails at Thomas Point, where the rockfish have been active when a good current is running at dusk. He said being there at daybreak can also be productive, but one morning, even though everything looked good, the fish were a no-show. He also said a handful of fish were now prowling the mouth of the West, but just a handful. An angler kayak fishing near the Route 50 bridge on the South River reported a very slow afternoon of fishing. They were throwing three-inch paddletails and small perch jigs to docks and rip-rap shoreline but only caught three small rockfish. The lack of perch this year really has us scratching our heads.
A reader reported encountering blues in the 14” to 18” range on the west side of Poplar, where there was a lot of bait and intermittent surface action. He said there was just enough visible action to cast paddletails and catch all you wanted. Blues were also reported at the Stone Rock this week, with trolled hoses and spoons catching the fish. Reports Editor Dillon Waters made it out to Eastern Bay last week looking for bluefish and rockfish. He and a few anglers started looking for the schools of blues near Kent Point but didn’t locate any fish first thing in the morning. They then went spot fishing on the east side of Poplar Island and caught a few dozen spot to live line with. A stop at Bloody Point Lighthouse produced zero bites, so they went to the MARI reef in Eastern Bay, where small bluefish and a few overslot rockfish were willing to hit spot. The bluefish were in the 14” to 17” range and often bit the spot in half without getting hooked. Another angler fishing at the mouth of Eastern Bay this week said that there have been sporadic bird shows with fish feeding at the surface, but that they are short lived. The fish will come up for a minute, then go back down and are moving quickly. When their boat got to the fish before they went down, bluefish and rockfish were much more willing to hit topwater lures compared to jigs.