Freshwater Fishing Reports

Freshwater Fishing Report, March 10 Update:

Spring is right around the corner and the first signs of its arrival are beginning to show. The return of warmer weather has many anglers excited for more abundant fishing opportunities. Perch anglers hitting the upper tribs have experienced mixed results depending on location. Reports have ranged from skunks to epic with everything in-between so we’re going to stick with individual area reports by zone rather than lumping them all together. The most consistent white perch bites are coming out of the Manokin and Nanticoke, but these fish should become active in other tributaries soon. We had the first reader reports trickle in of shad being caught in the upper southern tribs, from the Potomac south. These are exceptionally early fish and everything we heard about was onsies-twosies, but it looks like the run could come ahead of schedule this year.

Largemouth bass are becoming more active, especially on days where the temperature is above average. Many of these fish are feeling the urge to feed more aggressively and anglers are enjoying action in waters ranging from small farm ponds to larger reservoirs. Warm, sunny afternoons will bring bass up to shallower flats to feed. Targeting them with spinnerbaits, lipless cranks, and paddletails in these areas are good options. One reader wrote in to report an excellent day of bass and crappie fishing on a private southern Maryland pond. A few hours of work produced around 20 bass and five crappie. The fish were caught on a few different baits including live minnows floated under a bobber, red lipless crankbaits, and a spinner paired with a four-inch white paddletail. Most of the bass were in the three-to-five-pound range and the crappie were all around 12 inches. They noted that the bass took a particular liking to the red lipless crankbait and many of the bass had red lips as well. In the spring, red colored baits can work particularly well as they mimic the emerging crawfish from their winter burrows.

Freshwater Fishing Report, March 3 Update:

FishTalk’s own Zach Ditmars reports a so-so bite on pickerel in a Salisbury millpond last weekend, but he was dedicated to catching the fish with fly gear so there may have been better action with bait or conventional lures. In any case he did score four fish, including a 24.5-inch citation-sized pickerel. Contributor Eric Packard made it out on a small southern Maryland lake during one of the warmer afternoons early this week and enjoyed some excellent bass action. He says the fish were in three to four feet of water, and most hit a wacky rig but a stickbait also got some bites.

We have multiple indications this week that crappie fishing is picking up as temperatures continue to trend milder. Anglers in the Pocomoke, Potomac, and at many lakes are having success. Captain Brian from Apex Predators Guide Service reported catching his first crappie of the year at a creek off the Potomac using small jigheads and minnows. Small soft plastic jigs work well when fished under a bobber or jigged off the bottom but minnows tend to work best to get the crappie biting. We also had a reader report from a farm pond this week confirming the hungriness of the crappie, with a dozen of them plus a bass slamming small chartreuse twister tails on an eighth-ounce head.

Maryland and Virginia fisheries agencies have been busy with stockings throughout most of the winter and now through spring is a great time to target both wild and stocked trout in our region’s rivers, creeks, and lakes. Many areas will still have holdover fish and up in the mountains, spring hatches will have the fish ready to eat. Mossy Creek reports that little black stones, some quill gordons, and black caddis have been spotted hatching in the mountains. Dry fly fishing has been decent and will improve as temperatures warm up and hatches become more significant. They noted that over the weekend anglers caught a few more fish on nymphs than dry flies but late afternoon dry fly fishing really picked up nicely. Maryland stocking information can be found at the Maryland DNR website while Virginia trout stocking information can be found at the Virginia DWR website.