Talbot County Maritime Museum

Fly Fishing on Maryland's Eastern Shore

There is a whole world of fly fishing experiences to be had once you cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and enter Maryland's Eastern Shore. From ponds and lakes filled with big largemouth bass and colorful bluegills to seemingly endless tidal rivers to blackwater adventures to winding salt marsh creeks to the coastal bays all the way out to the Atlantic Ocean. 

 

Different from the other regions, the Eastern Shore’s selection of fish species changes with each season's migration patterns. Cecil, Kent, Caroline, Queen Anne’s, Talbot, Wicomico, Somerset and Worcester counties together literally provide a lifetime of fly fishing adventures, 12 months of the year, with an evolving seasonal menu!

 

BACK TO FLY FISHING TRAIL 

FLY FISHING Trail SITES on Maryland's Eastern Shore

White Perch

Fly Fishing for White Perch

About White Perch Ask anyone in Maryland to tell you the first fish they caught, and the most likely answer will be a white perch. (Morone americana). Close cousins to striped bass, they’ll take an artificial lure quicker than a whipstitch on a shad dart. They’re prolific in . . .

Assawoman Bay Marshes

Assawoman Bay

The Assawoman Bay Trail site is the ideal spot to fly fish in Maryland’s expansive coastal bays. Launching on the bay side of Worcester County’s Ocean City at the 64th Street Boat Ramp, you will find yourself trying to decide—do I go north into Assawoman Bay or head south . . .

Black Walnut Point Aerial

Black Walnut Point

This Trail sites provides shoreline as well as boat-based fly fishing opportunities on the mid-Eastern Shore of Talbot County. The Black Walnut Point Fishing Area and Parking provides a place to cast and fish riprap on the Chesapeake Bay side of the point. Launching your . . .

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

Blackwater Refuge

With almost 29,000 acres of fully protected marshlands, forests and tidal waters, Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge offers very unique opportunities for fly fishing for northern snakeheads, striped bass, speckled trout, redfish, flounder and bluefish. You will need a boat . . .

Eastern Neck Wildlife Refuge

Chester River

Kent County offers some of the best access to great places to fly fish along the upper Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay and up into the Chester River. Fly fishers launching from Rock Hall will find themselves immediately in productive Chesapeake Bay waters with options to . . .

Choptank River at Red-Bridges

Choptank River at Red Bridges

Where the free flowing river meets the tidally influenced river, the Choptank River at Red Bridges Trail site in Caroline County provides for a very unique fly fishing experience. For three seasons of the year, the menu of fish species that can be caught by fly fishers . . .

Speckled Trout

Honga River

From the Trail site’s boat launch in Church Creek in Dorchester County, you get access to the full menu of lower Eastern Shore fish species—striped bass, speckled trout, redfish, flounder, bluefish, spot, spanish mackerel, flounder, croaker and black drum. After you make . . .

Fighting Another Janes Island State Park Striped Bass

Janes Island

You have a campsite or a cabin on an island, boat launch ramps and place to tie up your boat, miles and miles of marked water trails, tidal creeks bisecting beautiful salt marshes, and access to miles of beaches on Chesapeake Bay– you just described a perfect weekday or . . .

Crappie Johnson’s millpond

Johnsons Pond

Even being surrounded by the City of Salisbury on all sides, Johnsons Pond has a well deserved reputation as a productive fishery. With much of the pond’s shoreline lined with trees, casting your fly towards these shallow-waters, particularly where there are lily pads, brush . . .

Kent Island Aerial Image

Kent Island

The Kent Island Trail site positions you right in the middle of some outstanding Eastern Shore tidal waters to fly fish for striped bass, bluefish, spot, Spanish mackerel, flounder, croaker and white perch. You will definitely need a boat for taking advantage of the . . .