Fishing Report
Chesapeake Bay (lower), VA
Summary: 5/8/25 - The main stem of the tidal Potomac River is still open to catch-and-release fishing of striped bass through May 15. Maryland’s main portion of the Bay will open to striped bass fishing on May 16, and DNR’s online striped bass season regulation map site can help you find where and when you can target them. Anglers continue to target large black drum in the Tangier and Pocomoke sound waters and near the Target Ship. The black drum are being spotted on depth finders and soft crab baits are lowered in hopes of a hook up. Reports from our southern neighbors tell of large red drum and speckled trout headed our way, and warmer Bay waters should have them showing up in Maryland waters soon. White perch are moving down the region’s tidal rivers headed for their typical summer habitat. Currently the lower Potomac, Patuxent, Nanticoke, Wicomico, and Pocomoke are good places to fish for them. They will be found holding over oyster bars and hard-bottomed lumps and are starting to be found along smaller creeks and shorelines. Dropper rigs with small soft plastic jigs or shad darts can be a good way to fish for them if you’re in a boat. Baiting a bottom-rig baited with grass shrimp or pieces of bloodworm is a perfect way to fish for white perch at this time if fishing from shore, docks, or from boats in deeper waters. The hickory shad spawning runs in the Potomac River below Little Falls are beginning to diminish as water temperatures in the Potomac come close to the 70-degree mark. American shad are still an option this week and anglers report a falling tide is the best time to fish for them. The hickory shad spawning run at Mattawoman Creek and the upper Patuxent is also on the wane. Fishing for crappie continues to be good in the tidal Potomac near the Wilson Bridge, the Wicomico and Pocomoke rivers. Most anglers are fishing with small minnows under a slip bobber cast near the concrete dump site on the northeast side of the Wilson Bridge, marina docks, and shoreline sunken brush and fallen treetops in the Eastern Shore rivers.