Since the unofficial start of summer (Memorial Day weekend) and the return of slot/limit striped bass fishing in the entirety of the Chesapeake Bay watershed (as of June 1st), including all tributaries, I’ve enjoyed several outings in my McKee Craft “river runner” to chase down whatever striped bass bite I could find. Additionally, I’ve been in touch with several local anglers and we’ve been sharing our daily experiences and reports. The early returns for striped bass fishing in the Severn River have been mixed.
To start. In the Round Bay area of the Severn, we usually see several schools of slot-size bass roaming in search of bait at this time of year (June). Each of the past three or so seasons has exhibited decent early summer fishing for stripers in the under-slot (>19″), slot (19–24″), and just-over slot (about 25–27″ max) size from the mouth of the river and up into Round Bay. We’ve also seen the submerged aquatic vegetation begin to thrive, growing in the shallows up to its surface in water that’s 5′ or less. This June has been a little different with the numbers of fish caught, so far, slightly down. The good news—plenty of SAV and bait fish are moving through the mid-river.
On one early-June outing, I motored to a favorite area—the east side of Long Point in the main stem of the river. There’s a nice dropoff from the docks into 20′ depths. My hunch was correct. I located a large school of small stripers up to 20″ in size moving from south to north in the deeper water along the dropoff. They seemed to circle back and around the area, probably searching for bait. I jigged up a few fish using a 3/4oz jig head tipped with a 5″ paddletail. White/chartruese were the colors. I honestly think that if I downsized a smidge to a 3″ bait profile, I might have caught more fish.
During another trip, on Father’s Day, the winds were blowing from the east, so I hugged the east shoreline (leeward side of the river) and worked small paddletails on 3/8oz jighead around the shallows, SAV, docks, and any dropoffs. This was a mid-day trip (about 12 noon to 4 p.m.), and I’m a believer that if you can, at least, locate fish, you can entice a few bites. Unfortunately, I didn’t locate any fish on side-scan or down imaging. Didn’t catch any fish on this trip.
Other reports from anglers indicate that there are a couple schools of stripers roaming the Round Bay vicinity. They’ll pop up to feed in quick bursts and dive deep. They’ve been located at all the points in the middle Severn. My hunch is that were witnessing just a few smaller schools of fish, and that the numbers haven’t quite filled into the Round Bay area yet. I believe more fish are still staged from the mouth of the Severn and up toward the two bridges (Navy Bridge and Route 50 Bridge). In the coming weeks, I would expect them to move further up river. After all, we’re seeing a lot of bait fish in this area. So, it’s only a matter of days until the fish do too!
See y’all on the water again, real soon!
