It's heating up!
It's really starting to come together, and the spring pattern that still has a grip on the eastern shore, has really started to give way to summer patterns on the ocean side and southern shore bay inlets. Lynnhaven, Little Creek and Rudee seem to have been producing for a while now, with abundant puppy drum and some impressive chopper blues coming out of Rudee. The trout bite seems to be improving, and the flounder should be just around the corner.
The bulls are arriving at their usual Eastern Shore haunts, but the shallow water sight fishing for smaller reds hasn't been as impressive as it has been the last few years' April and May. The water temps over there remain several degrees cooler than the southern shore, and that's likely driving that difference. The warmth (or more accurately the blistering heat out of nowhere) coming in the next several days should get everything in order on that side of the CBBT and remain an amazing location to target. Further up on the western shore of the bay trout continue to move around depth changes on the grass flats, with the gator specks much shallower. Last week's heavy winds stirred up the water and really hurt visibility in the area from Hampton going up towards Mobjack - but the grass there should help the water clear quickly until the inevitable mid-summer algae bloom. I'd try to offer a better report for this area - but my most recent trip appeared perfect in the forecasts but became unrelentingly windy, foggy, and cool. I think those days are behind us for this year, and hopefully cooler, foggy days will just mean that topwater will be effective well past sunrise!
Tight lines!
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