What's biting in Chesapeake Bay in October: redfish, spotted seatrout and bluefish at their peak, with tautog, cobia and Spanish mackerel around too. Fish Scouter's season calendar follows 27 fish here month by month, from Annapolis to Virginia Beach.
The fall bay: birds working everywhere, the speck bite starts
The biggest estuary in the country: 200 miles of brackish bay fed by the Susquehanna, Potomac, Patuxent, Choptank, Nanticoke, Rappahannock and James, with oyster bars, channel edges and lumps in the main stem, marsh islands down Tangier Sound, and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel's pilings and islands at the mouth. Salinity climbs from fresh at the Flats to ocean at Cape Henry.
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Jig and topwater the breaking stripers; drift the lower-bay grass and creeks for specks and puppy drum; the yellowbelly spot run off the piers.
Slow soft plastics on the deep channel edges and the warm discharges for released stripers; crabs tight to the Bridge-Tunnel islands for tog; specks in the Elizabeth River; winter bluefin off Virginia Beach.
Tog on the lower-bay wrecks on calm days; white perch deep in the tributaries; slow jigs for stripers where it's legal to target them.
Shad darts and grass shrimp in the tidal rivers for the perch run. Maryland's spawning rivers and the Susquehanna Flats close to striper targeting March 1 — know the maps.
Main-bay stripers catch-and-release in Maryland (spawning reaches closed); tog on the Bridge-Tunnel; black drum and bull reds start on the Eastern Shore shoals. Virginia closed speckled trout April–June in 2026.
Troll post-spawn fish on the channel edges; clams for black drum off Cape Charles; bloodworms for hardheads; drift Gulp for fluke at the Bridge-Tunnel.
Sight-cast bucktails and eels to cobia on the lower-bay shoals and buoys; chum and chunk stripers on the middle-bay lumps; fluke on the Bridge-Tunnel.
Troll Clark spoons fast for Spanish on the lower-bay rips; topwater specks at dawn in Mobjack and Tangier; sheepshead on the Bridge-Tunnel pilings.
Maryland closes ALL striper targeting August 1–31 (2026). Bull reds on the middle-bay schools, puppy drum and specks in the lower-bay grass, tripletail under the pot floats, big fluke on the Bridge-Tunnel.
Stripers and blues busting bait under the birds — jig the schools. Jumbo croakers and spot on the channel edges before they leave.
Jig and topwater the breaking stripers; drift the lower-bay grass and creeks for specks and puppy drum; the yellowbelly spot run off the piers.
Suspending baits and soft plastics for specks in the Piankatank, Lynnhaven and Elizabeth; troll and jig stripers on the channel edges; tog on the Bridge-Tunnel.
Trophy migrants return to the lower bay and the Bridge-Tunnel (Maryland catch-and-release from December 6 in 2026); tog on the Bridge-Tunnel; specks in the Elizabeth River.
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