Maryland & Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report
Air and water temperatures have dropped drastically over the past week as most of the East Coast entered a deep freeze. In the Northeast, ice fishing season is well underway, a promising prospect for freshwater enthusiasts in the Mid Atlantic. The cold weather is here to stay for the foreseeable future—even Florida is looking at temperatures in the 20s and 30s over the coming week! As a result, the stellar winter bluefin tuna bite has waned, but local anglers are getting out for some striped bass and tautog fishing when conditions permit.
Sailing out of West Ocean City, Captain Monty Hawkins of Morning Star Fishing shared that their last bluefin tuna trip of the season on Saturday (1/11) was met with calm, snowy conditions when they left the dock. Upon reaching the bluefin grounds for the day—Jackspot Shoal—they found big schools of fish and came tight on their third pass trolling in the area. Unfortunately, it was not the right kind of big fish, but a lone striped bass which was promptly released. Conditions quickly grew poor throughout the morning, so the skipper headed for port. Their next outing was on Monday (1/13) for some offshore tautog fishing. They anchored a handful of times and were met with finicky bites from some decent tautog, but the bite never really developed until the end of the day when it was time to pull the anchor and head in. According to the captain, they plan to revisit the tautog grounds tomorrow (1/17). Sign up for their email list on morningstarfishing.com to stay in the know and to book a winter tog trip!
In Ocean City, Taylor Bakke from Always Bent Fishing OC shared the following report: “With the recent cold snap and snow it appears the bluefin bite may finally be over for us in Ocean City. It was a phenomenal winter we had though! A handful of us got out for one last trip on 1/6 in the snow and caught them, but we haven’t heard of any signs of bluefin since then, and the water temps have dropped significantly. Boats are now switching over to striper and tautog fishing, or are headed south to VA Beach and OBX to continue chasing the bluefin. We will continue to bring you all reports as we get more info, but as of now, the bays are freezing, making the inshore bite tough, too. Might be a good time to start hunting before the seasons end! We’ll continue to try finding and catching fish wherever and whenever we can and will keep you all in the loop! We are offering a discount on our membership program, and we also have some new Always Bent and Bad Habit merch available in the shop! We appreciate the support from you all!” In the meantime, check out the Always Bent YouTube channel—which just reached 1K subscribers—for videos of bluefin tuna fishing in the snow.
Captain Jamie Clough of Eastern Shore Light Tackle Charters in Chester reported that between the snow and the frigid temps, they haven’t been out recently. Water temps in the Bay have dropped significantly but they hope to get back to striper fishing when conditions allow.