Coastal Mid-Atlantic Fishing Report, March 20 Update:
Instead of going fishing one day last week, Capt. Monty of Morning Star fame reports assisting with a beautiful reef deployment off Ocean City, sending a steel Navy boat to the bottom for the Diane Olenginski Memorial Reef. The boat was stacked with pipe and block, providing tons of nooks and crannies for growth to appear. Remember that the OC Reef Foundation keeps charts—with numbers—on all their deployments, and a $50 donation gets you a reef chart with so many hotspots you’ll never run out. The offshore bottom fishing is still limited right now, but there are some big tautog being caught. Along the beaches, anglers are patiently awaiting the start of the black drum run. In the meantime, if you want to wet a line on the beach, there are dogfish and some skate that have been willing to hit pieces of fresh cut bait along the beaches of Assateague and Chincoteague.
The coastal waters are warming, and we are starting to see some more inshore action. A reader fishing the back bays of Ocean City said that striped bass action is starting to improve, though it is still on the slow side thanks to the colder temperatures this past week. Fishing marsh shoreline banks in areas with current, such as creek mouths are good areas to target in the early spring. More striped bass will push into the back bays as water temperatures warm into the 50s. There have also been a few striped bass caught around the Rout 50 and Route 90 bridges, though most of the fish are under the 28–31-inch slot limit. The first few flounder of the season have been caught in the back bays of the Eastern Shore of Virginia. The weather has been up and down, but some very warm stretches of weather in recent weeks have warmed water temperatures enough for these fish to start pushing back inshore. Sea Hawk Sports Center had an angler check in after a successful trip this week. Captain Steve’s Bait and Tackle also had an angler check in with a keeper flattie from the back bays. It looks like it is time to break out the flounder gear and start drifting some squid and minnows as the action should continue to heat up over the next few weeks.
Coastal Mid-Atlantic Fishing Report, March 12 Update:
The coastal waters are still cold, and the back bays are still a few weeks away from getting active with fish. The ocean temperatures are also still cold, hovering around the low 40s, so nearshore and offshore bites are also limited. Most of the offshore action is centered around tautog at the wreck and reef sites right now. While fishing the wrecks, you will want to use heavy line to pull the fish out of the bottom structure. Reliable tautog baits are clam, green crabs, and fiddler crabs. After a very cold winter, the spring runs may be a bit delayed as we wait for water temperatures to get into that sweet spot. We can expect the first few black drum to start showing up along the beaches by the end of March or early April, so that is just a few weeks away. When they do show up, anglers will be flocking to the beaches of Assateague and the lower Eastern Shore of Virginia. Drum will be cruising through the suds, well within casting distance from the sand. Most anglers deploy large surf rods baited with fresh clams and crab. Surf conditions can range from flat calm to very rough, so depending on the day you may need four ounces of weight or over a pound to keep baits in place. You can expect to also have plenty of bycatch stingrays to keep you busy while you wait for a drum to bite. Late in the spring, striped bass and red drum will start moving into the surf, offering even more opportunities.
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.