Chesapeake Light Tackle

If you’ve been following my reports and articles you know I like to refer to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge as Light Tackle University. It’s a fantastic area to learn the basics of light tackle fishing and an even better place to perfect advanced skills. Unfortunately, it’s been a slow spring at the bridge. Poor water quality has kept the fish farther south. Finally, things have changed enough for the usual early summer pattern to begin.

My son Cory is visiting from Tennessee this weekend. We fished the Bridge Friday evening and again this morning. Friday we had a strong outgoing current and found fish holding 16 to 20 feet deep on four sets of eastern shore bridge pilings. Today there were a few small fish on the same columns, but the outgoing was not so swift. Our best fish today were suspended around deeper bridge pilings.

In my “Fishing the Bay Bridge” article I talk about the techniques we used both days. In short, fish holding near the bottom require heavier jig heads and more action to the lure while suspended fish want something to flutter more as it falls slowly through the current.

One of the perks to fishing the area this time of year is that there are some other very good fishing areas nearby. Cory and I ran north in the rain this morning and found some pretty good fish on a hump with a hard shell bottom near the upper end of Kent Island. This is my third year fishing this particular hump and it’s always held fish, sometimes upwards of 30 inches, through the first week of June.

I’ve also been doing some topwater fishing over the past few days, especially in the evening south of Bloody Point light. The fish have not been too big, usually mid-20s, but it’s very entertaining to coax them up from underwater structure with a top-water lure. Lately my best fish have come on spook type lures. Water temperatures in the area around Kent Island are in the mid-60s.

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