Chesapeake Bay is surest bet to catch black drum

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There's good news for Maryland anglers chasing after the mighty black drum. The big bottom feeders have been caught -- off and on -- from the Chesapeake Bay's James Island up to Stone Rock and the Sharps Island Light.

However, this is not like fishing for bluegills in a farm pond. An angler needs stout gear, a carton filled with soft or peeler crabs, 7/0 and 8/0 hooks, 6- to 8-ounce sinkers and a willingness to drift around for hours until striking it rich with a little pod of drumfish in 25 to 30 feet of water.

Once a drum is hooked and, better yet, put into the boat, an angler has the stuff memorable meals are made of. Few fish taste better than "steaks" or "chops" cut from a thick drum fillet, battered and fried in a hot skillet.

It's clear the Chesapeake is the best place for now. In addition to drumfish possibilities, the rockfish are plentiful and widely scattered. It begins at the Northern Neck of Virginia up to the Smith Point Light, rounding the corner into the lower Potomac, where scads of 18- to 28-inch-long stripers are picked up by trollers and a few chummers.

In the main body of the bay, local angler Andy Croley serves as a typical example. His e-mail begins, "Bernie Schreiner and I went [out] from the Patuxent Naval Air Station and fished across the bay. Caught 10 rockfish from 18 to 27 inches. Kept our four and had a great time. Used an artificial eel, a No. 19 Tony and a No. 3 Clark spoon and two umbrella rigs with chartreuse sassy Shads. All of our lures caught fish."

Ken Lamb at the Tackle Box in Lexington Park agrees.

"The rockfish are here," he says, noting chummers in the lower Potomac are getting smaller stripers but plenty of them. The chummers are setting up from Cornfield Harbor to Point Lookout.

"Croakers are hot up the Potomac and Patuxent rivers," Lamb says. "The fishing is fabulous for boat renters at Quade's Store in Bushwood [on the St. Mary's County side of the Wicomico River]. Limits of croakers are possible for savvy fishermen in the open water during the day."

Meanwhile, night fishermen are doing well off the public pier at Quade's and also up the river and from the Point Lookout and Solomons Island piers. The byword is "night." It's better after sundown than during bright sunlight.

Trollers in the upper bay from the Chester River down to the Bay Bridge and below connect on scattered, small rockfish, but small boaters also have noted the presence of white perch around Sandy Point State Park, with croakers beginning to show up in the mouth of the Choptank River.