I’m down here visiting my brother and we are struggling to put together any kind of consistent bite so was hoping this group might be able to give me some tips. We have fished the jetties, ICW, and up the wando and caught 9 fish total over maybe 20ish hours of fishing (with 8 of those being at the jetties one morning - went back this morning and got nothing lol). Part of the problem is that everything looks fishy every point and bridge looks like it should hold fish and then boom 30 mins later and nothing. Planning to hit Folly this evening with popping corks and minnows to see if that changes our luck. That said, hoping this group can point us in the right direction and wanted to say this site is awesome, wish they had something like this up in the Chesapeake!
Everyone always thinks fishing is easy. It rarely has been for me. So much to factor in, tides, time of day, water temp, time of year, bait, etc. I have had my most success casting mud minnows out to points at creek mouths, etc. and reeling it back in as it bounced along the bottom. Live shrimp under popping corks along grass lines works for me sometimes. How do you explain catching fish around one dock but none of the other 10 docks produce even 1 fish.
I’m sure some much better fishermen than me will be long with some far better advice. I will say this though. I have never had a bad day fishing as just getting out there is a blessing. Catching fish is a bonus.
Yep been fishing my whole life and still there’s days where it feels like I have never been out a second in my life! But apprciate the insight and anything is helpful for me when I know nothing and couldn’t agree more always happy to be on the water and fishing is just the icing on top
I would say, keep moving if you can. They’re out there you just got to find them. Sometimes that’s really hard and sometimes they seem to be everywhere. I would also stick to low tide–>incoming. Creek mouths where the shrimp will be waiting to get back up into the grass. Good luck.
Yep that’s the plan, just going to keep going until we catch something and figure it out! Hoping to grab some mud minnows and hit the creek mouths this evening to see if that can change our fortunes
I’m now almost 70, and have been fishing a long time, all kinds of fishing. I spent many years fishing around areas of the MD portion of the Chesapeake, and had the same there as here. I agree with what’s been said, no matter what, you have to find the fish, and be there when they are.
Part of the problem, is too many people, want to catch fish, and not have to put forth any effort or time to do that, and that’s not what usually happens.
In the Scriptures, Jesus provided an exceptional catch for some of the fishermen he wanted as disciples, to show his power and to show them he wanted to help them. It doesn’t work that way for the majority of us who go out fishing for fun, even when we want to keep some to eat. Those men had spent many days fishing, and caught very little too. Praying doesn’t hurt, but you still need to put in the time to learn and find the fish.
For your comment about the Chesapeake area and a forum like this, check Tidal Fish, or Pier & Surf. Both have folks from the Chesapeake area who post often, including me. I also Admin both.
However, it’s like here, no one can always tell you where to go to always catch some fish, and fish of legal/keeper size.
Many folks want to help others, but don’t want to spot burn their spots that they may have spent years locating. I can tell you about a lot of general locations in MD, where I used to fish often, and even some specific, but none are secrets, they’re all places folks have fished at for years.
If it was all as easy as just going out and catching a bunch of fish, there wouldn’t be any fish left to catch. 
Yep, sometimes just like Jesus told Simon Peter, James, John, and Andrew that day,…,you just gotta believe and fish (cast your net) on the other side of the boat, lol.
Still true today I suppose.
Yes
A lot of people have moved in here
But DNR needs to check people at Bushy
That is where the fish are going
Just imagine if opti were an outlaw?
Every fish my son turned in had been caught by optiker??
I’m talking gigging too!!
Indeed, and true that you have to learn and not give up. Christ certainly had inside information that day! 
A lot of people now, recommend that folks go out with a guide, to both catch and learn about an area. I’ve fished with charter captains a few times, but none of them were real willing to teach much. I don’t know if that’s the case here or not.
Not everyone has the funds to do that either. Those times we did, was special occasions, and we had to save up to do it.
We used to vacation at Pawley’s Island, and we caught some fish, but not a lot, or many of size. We caught more than some other folks, not as many as some.
I’ve been fishing lakes a lot more in the past couple of years, and relearning new freshwater patterns has proven to be harder than I remember growing up. Maybe there aren’t as many fish now? Who knows, but I have the same feelings about fresh water as the OP sometimes, so there’s that.
There used to be a guy here, he’s gone now, anyway he was the Staggerin’ Shrimpa.
We were fishing some small fresh water lakes once and he told me Sea trout will rise and eat their own poop, but these little freshies are hard to catch.
We had a good laugh, and oten times when I’m getting my arse handed to me on a lake I chuckle a little and think back fondlly on ol’ Douglas.
Good times
I live close enough to Lake Marion, that I can walk over & fish from my neighbors properties. I catch some, but other than a few decent size catfish and two Bowfin, have not caught much of any size.
I’m only fishing one small area, and any fish that are there, is limited. During the spawn, so big bass move in there, but a few days later and they’re gone. One of the pros was in there on year, during a big tournament, and he said he saw 5, but only caught one. That was Hank Cherry. So, these fish move around, and you have to be fishing where they are, when they’re there, and saltwater fish tend to move more than freshwater.
I used to fish often in some small brackish rivers in MD and you would think, small, shallow river the fish would be easier to locate. But along some of the shore, the water went way back into the woods, and back far enough that a boat couldn’t get in there and if was hard to even cast back into there. The bass could get in there however, and so could other fish.
I fished all along one section one day, and working my way back towards the ramp, i hooked a decent bass, but lost it. It was near one of those areas, where they could get back deep into Spadderdock pads, and no boat could get back there. I figured they spent a lot of the day in there and came out to feed, which is something I had to learn about that river, by spending time fishing there, and I fished there several years.
The more you can learn about a location, the better your chances, but there’s still no guarantees.
I like chasing birds that are feeding over schooling striped bass on lake Marion in the cooler months. We used to do that a lot.
Combat fishing on the weekends, lol
Sorry to highjack this thread, better get back to saltwater like he asked about, lol.
Grew up fishing the chesapeake and have found that down here is very similar in that people are super helpful but don’t want to spot burn (which is totally understandable)! But I went out last night and was able to get on a decent redfish bite using mud minnows, only caught 2 but missed 5-6 because I was using a popping cork and just yanked it out of their mouths. That said I appreciate your response and agree praying doesn’t hurt but still have to get out there.
All good! I actually was curious what the striper fishing was like on lake marion. I figure it pretty heavy pressure so the combat fishing sounds very similar to the Chesapeake haha
I grew up in Severna Park and lived in Arnold for 36 years. If you get out on the bay on a weekend, especially holidays, it’s dangerous, as you already know. I don’t see the same here, even though the lake can get a lot of boat traffic too. You don’t have the crazies here with the big yachts cruising around, or 20 charter captains all trying to chase the same fish around and they think that they own the water. Yes, there’s folks here that do some of that, and have little respect for others, but less of it here than on the Bay.
Look, I drove a tractor trailer for 28 years and have been all over the country, and you have the same thing on our roadways as you have on the waterways, a % of idiots, no matter where you are in the country.
One very good thing here, for targeting Stripers, is when many of the boaters who don’t fish are on this lake, the Striper fishing season is closed. You had a lot more time period for overlap between anglers and pleasure boaters on the bay. Of course there you also have a lot more sail boats, big & small, particularly close to Annapolis.
I’m glad that you found some Redfish. That’s what you have to keep doing, is go out there as often as you can, and put in the time. I hated going to a spot that I knew, to find others fishing there and having success, but that’s all part of fishing too. Folks will find spots, even without the spot burning. Awhile back, on this forum, there was a guy threatening to shoot folks because he had placed brush piles in the lake, and he was mad that when he went fishing, often someone else was fishing the brush piles he had spent time placing. On public water, there’s not any justification to be mad, when others are fishing, regardless of who places the brush pile. Most folks won’t know who placed them. They just know that a brush pile attracts fish.
You may not have that in tidal water, but it’s possible someone sank something to attract fish, and others might not know about it, but certainly someone will eventually find it. That’s why I mentioned spots back in MD, none are secrets.
I had a fishing buddy for about 15 years before he passed away from cancer, and we used to fish all kinds of small, out of the way places. Sometimes we saw other anglers, sometimes we didn’t. We both liked to use fly tackle, and we often met folks who didn’t even know that fly tackle could be used in some of those places.
We went to a popular river to see about finding some panfish one winter day when we had some warm weather and had to apologize to some duck hunters who had setup to hunt before we got there. They said they wished that they had gone fishing instead, it was a bright, beautiful warm day and they had not even seen a duck all morning and was planning to get out of there as we came in. Things like that can happen, and fortunately, no one got bent out of shape about it. We certainly would not have wanted to interfere with their hunting, not intentionally. But stuff like that happens too when you fish or hunt in areas that a lot of folks know about.
Try to catch some shrimp and finger mullet. Should be able to find some, near banks, grass and tiny creek mouths. Lots of bait out there and both of those will out fish MM’s IMO.