Middle Bay Fishing Reports

Middle Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report, April 3 Update:

Two readers reported a mediocre shad bite after fishing on Mason Springs last weekend and midweek this week, each catching between a half-dozen and 10 hickories (plus a couple of herring and small yellow perch) in a few hours of afternoon fishing. One was using a silver spoon/white-pink-chartreuse dart and the dart was the hot ticket for the shad. Contributor Eric Packard had similar results at multiple spots looking for shad recently, with up-and-down action and seven or eight fish the norm. A small gold spoon drew bites. He also tried a couple of areas on the Patuxent that normally produce fish but drew a blank. He also noted that lots of wind had made fishing tough recently. This week’s warm temperatures should have schools of hickory shad and American shad migrating up the Chesapeake Bay. Large schools of menhaden are arriving along with them, and the striped bass are following closely. Several guide boats are reporting an improved open water bite as striped bass are moving up the Bay. The key in the main stem has been to find the large schools of bait. There have also been some schools of fish moving through the shallows, but locating them is not all that easy. They are often on the move and can move through an area quickly as they are on the way to the spawning areas.

It seems that the yellow perch run may have wound down for the season; the last report of a full stringer on the Tuckahoe came in last week, and since then several readers have reported catching just a few small males there, at Mason Springs, and near 214 on the Patuxent. The white perch should be spawning with the warm temperatures this past week. They will likely have pushed into the upper reaches of the Middle Bay tidal rivers such as the Choptank and Patuxent. The Angler in Chief reports a great bite of mixed species was happening in the Patuxent this week a couple miles north of Jug Bay. Using a mix of grass shrimp and minnow fished on darts and Sabikis, he and Contributor Eric Packard caught a couple of yellow perch, a bunch of white perch, some crappie, a channel cat, and an accidental carp. But the best action came while tossing four-inch white flukes into deadfall, which produced one largemouth bass after the next. He noted that the water was exceptionally low and the panfish were hanging in channels, while the bass were all focused around deadfall being hit by current and were on the up-current side of the structure.