Chincoteague Island Tide Charts & Fishing

Season: Year-round, best in fall

Baits: Cut mullet, Live shrimp, Gold spoons

Sight-fish tailing reds on shallow flats on a flooding tide. Fall schools push bait against oyster bars and grass edges.

Season: Spring and fall runs along the beach; summer offshore

Baits: Cut menhaden, Metal spoons and jigs, Topwater plugs

When blues are blitzing bait in the surf you will see birds working and bait spraying; throw a metal or a popper into it. Wire or heavy mono leader, because they bite through everything else and through each other. Bleed and ice them immediately if you plan to eat them.

Season: Spring and fall, as water warms and cools (check regs)

Baits: Green crabs, Asian shore crabs, Fiddler crabs

Tog live in the rocks and eat crabs. Fish a crab on a short leader tight to the bottom against a jetty, wreck or rock pile, and expect to lose rigs. Slack and slow current make it far easier to keep a bait in the strike zone without snagging.

Season: Late spring through fall (check regs)

Baits: Squid, Clams, Small jigs

A structure fish: rocks, wrecks, reefs, jetties and pilings. Drop a high-low rig or a small jig straight down and keep it just off the bottom. Bigger fish sit deeper; inshore jetties and piers hold plenty of smaller ones.

Season: Late spring through early fall (check regs)

Baits: Squid strips, Live killifish (minnows), Gulp! swimming mullet

Drift or slowly retrieve a bait along sandy and gravel bottom near channel edges, inlets and drop-offs. Moving water is everything: fluke face into the current and ambush bait, so a slack tide usually means a slow bite. Bounce the bottom and give a second before setting the hook.