Most areas in the upper Bay have been locked up in ice. The coves are the first to freeze over, followed by more open waters. Anglers anxious to try some fishing for yellow perch should be very careful and never explore iced-over areas alone. Warmer weather is in the forecast towards the end of the month, so ice conditions can become dangerous rather quickly. 

Although January has been tough on home heating bills, the cold weather may help set the stage for a good striped bass spawn this spring in the spawning tidal rivers. Time will tell but we have our fingers crossed that conditions will align. Recreational anglers and commercial watermen have been making sacrifices to help build the spawning stock size so this may be the start of a payoff. 

The lower Susquehanna River will offer some fishing opportunities in the coming month, depending on ice and weather conditions. Blue catfish will be found holding in the deeper channels. The deep hole below the railroad bridge is always a good place to try. Gizzard shad or menhaden make good baits. Next month that same area is one of the first places to be able to fish for yellow perch. Dropper rigs with enough sinker to hold and baited with small minnows are a popular way to target the yellow perch.

There is not much fishing to report in the middle Bay, as ice conditions have locked up most harbors, marinas, and boat ramps. Striped bass are hunkered down in the deep channels for the cold winter, and they will not bite jigs in most cases. It may be possible to jig with dropper rigs for white perch if you can find where they are holding, and if you do succeed, they will be hard-earned fish due to the cold weather conditions.

If ice conditions in the upper Choptank River recede in the coming weeks, fishing for blue catfish in the region of the Dover Bridge to Denton will be something anglers can try. The blue catfish can be found holding close to the bottom in the deepest channels, channel catfish and white catfish will also be part of the mix. 

If anglers can navigate the ice near marinas or boat ramps, the Calvert Cliffs Power Plant warm water discharge is always an attraction. Striped bass will often nose into that warm water discharge current and drifting through and jigging can reap catch-and-release rewards.

The Potomac and Nanticoke rivers will provide much of the focus for anglers in the next couple of weeks if the ice recedes and fishing for blue catfish can occur. The blue catfish will be found holding in the deeper channels and often the fishing can be quite good. The deep channel in front of Fort Washington is notorious for holding some of the largest blue catfish and several Maryland state records have been caught there. The channel areas near the mouth of the Marshyhope and Sharptown area is a good place to fish for blue catfish if conditions allow. Fresh gizzard shad or frozen menhaden make good baits and chumming with a chum pot filled with ground menhaden can help attract blue cats closer to your boat.

Keaton Feaster of the Albert Powell Hatchery holds up one of the fall holdover golden rainbow trout that are growing larger for the anticipated spring stockings. Photo by Michael Anderson, Maryland DNR

Ice conditions in most freshwater and tidal areas have made it tough for open water fishing this past month. Warmer weather is in the forecast so hopefully waters will begin to open up. Some of the favorite reservoirs in the central region are closed to fishing until March 15, they include Loch Raven, Liberty, Prettyboy and Piney Run. Triadelphia and Howard Duckett reservoirs are open to fishing when the ice recedes; ice fishing is prohibited in these locations.

Maryland DNR staff have been working hard at the trout hatcheries to keep ice from clogging the rearing raceways and working in the bitter cold. They report that the trout that were reserved from the normal fall trout stockings are growing out well and trout anglers fishing the put and take trout management waters should be pleased.  

Following a public comment period, the Department has established changes to the areas managed for put-and-take trout fishing. These changes will maximize trout fishing opportunities for anglers and to reduce the complexity of regulations. There will be a single closure period during the spring stocking season. All these changes will be listed in the 2025 Maryland Fishing Guide which will be posted online and distributed by the end of February. 

These changes include:

Extending the Patapsco River put-and-take trout fishing area in Baltimore and Howard counties upstream by about 0.61 miles. The additional area is public property – within Patapsco Valley State park –  with good access for both stocking and anglers. The new area encompasses the stretch of the Patapsco River from the previous site of Bloede Dam upstream to Ilchester Road. 

Some areas removed from the stocking list are: 

• Jones Falls below Lake Roland in Baltimore County, which has poor access for stocking and has not been stocked since the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Beaver Run in Carroll County, which is entirely on private property with little public participation. Also, the stream is very shallow, provides limited holding habitat for trout, and has not been stocked for several years. 

To remove potential for confusion about different closures of trout water during the spring stocking season, the Closure 2 management option is being eliminated and those areas will be redesignated. All Closure 1 waters are closed from the first Sunday after March 4 to the last Saturday in March. Closure 0 areas are not closed but are managed under the put-and-take rules – a daily creel of five fish per person per day, a possession limit of 10, and a prohibition on harvesting brook. 

The areas being designated as Closure 1 are:

• Cotton Cove Pond (Allegany County)
• Farm Museum Pond (Carroll County)
• Hamburg Pond (Frederick County)
•  Jennings Run mainstem downstream of the confluence of North Jennings Run (Allegany County)
• Martin Luther King Jr. Pond (Montgomery County) 
• North Jennings Run Watershed (Allegany County) 
• Pine Lake (Montgomery County) 
• Rainbow Lake (Frederick County)
• Savage River main stem from Savage River Reservoir upstream to Poplar Lick (Garrett County) 
• Whiskey Springs Pond (Frederick County)

The areas designated to the Closure 0 list are: 

• Frank Bentz Pond (Frederick County)
• Indian Springs Pond (Washington County) 
• Izaak Walton Pond (Montgomery County)
• Northwest Branch watershed upstream of Maryland Route 410 to Norwood Road (Montgomery County) 
• Westminster Pond (Carroll County) 

Some other areas are being moved to the Closure 1 list to allow more participation in the department’s second annual Youth Trout Fishing Day, which will be scheduled the Saturday before the traditional Opening Day in March. Those areas are: 

• Accident Pond (Garrett County) 
• Calvert Cliffs Pond (Calvert County) 
• Dans Mountain Pond (Allegany County)
• Hughesville Pond (Charles County)
• Hutchins Pond (Calvert County)
• Warfield Park Pond (Howard County) 

A hard-working stocking crew sent us a picture of what it takes to stock trout in Cunningham Falls Reservoir recently, by cutting a hole in the ice with a chain saw and backing the truck down a boat ramp.  Maryland DNR photo.

The pre-season stocking of trout has begun this month but because of ice conditions in many of the small streams and creeks, crews are stocking reservoirs and lakes first. 

Anglers have been cautiously ice fishing on several western region lakes and reservoirs recently. Warmer weather is in the forecast and ice conditions may become unsafe rather quickly. Anyone fishing where there is ice needs to follow the Maryland Department of Natural Resources guidelines on ice dangers and safety, found on our Natural Resources Police website.  

Anglers hoping to fish open waters will have their chance and some areas like the Upper Potomac and the North Branch of the Potomac can be fished.

Many tidal anglers will start to think about the anticipated spawning runs of yellow perch and white perch in February and into March. Maryland DNR Fishing and Boating Services listens to anglers to establish sensible regulations, and one of these specific instances is the controversy of using circle hooks or J-style hooks when fishing minnows for perch. There is a public comment period open till February 10, to voice your opinion regarding these proposed regulation changes allowing the use of J-style hooks when fishing with minnows. Anglers are urged to look at the regulation changes and comment. The proposed regulation change and summary can be found on the DNR Changes to Fishing Regulations webpage. 

As the ice breaks up in the upper sections of the tidal rivers, anglers will once again be able to target chain pickerel for some fun catch and release action. They can often be found holding close to sunken wood and fallen trees along shorelines. A variety of lures will work but single hooks make releasing fish easier on the fish and angler.

Blue catfish and channel catfish can be found hunkered down in the channels in the upper sections of the bay’s tidal rivers. The Potomac, Patuxent, lower Susquehanna, Chester, Choptank, and Nanticoke hold some of the greatest numbers of blue catfish but can be found to some degree in every tidal river feeding into the Chesapeake. Channel catfish and white catfish will also be found in every tidal river.

Tautog, photo by Captain Chase Eberle, courtesy of Scott Lenox

The biggest show in town is fishing for tautog. They can be found at the Ocean City Inlet and Route 50 Bridge area for shore bound anglers. The boats taking anglers out to the offshore wreck and reef sites are finding good numbers of tautog this month. In some cases, the tautog are reaching double digit sizes.

New 2025 recreational fishing regulations for coastal anglers have been posted for several species on the Department’s public notices website, mostly unchanged from 2024. 

The summer flounder season will be January 11 through May 31 with a 16-inch minimum size and limit of four fish per day per angler. From June 1 through December 31, the minimum size will be 17.5 inches with a limit of four fish per day per angler.

The bluefish season runs from January 11 with no closed season, with a limit of three fish per day per angler when fishing a private boat or shoreline. If fishing from a for-hire boat the recreational limit will be five fish per day per angler. The minimum size is 8 inches.

The black sea bass season will run May 15 through September 30, and from October 10 through December 31; the daily limit is 15 fish per day per angler. The minimum size is 13 inches, excluding the tail filament. The daily limit for scup (porgies) will be 30 fish per day per angler per day from January 11 on, with no closed season and a minimum size of 9 inches.

The 2025 tautog season will run from January 1 through May 15 with a limit of four fish per day per angler. From July 1 through October 31 the daily limit is two fish per day per angler. Beginning November 1 through December 31, the daily limit will again be four fish per day per angler. The minimum size for all seasons will be 16 inches. 

The 2025 season for cobia will be closed until June 15. A subsequent notice will establish regulations for the remainder of the season at a later date.