Chesapeake Bay Sizzles: Sheepshead, Spadefish, and Trophy Reds on Fire

Artificial Lure here with your Chesapeake Bay, Virginia fishing report for June 11, 2025.

Sunrise today lit up the water at 5:45 AM, and you’ll have daylight until a sunset of 8:21 PM. Tides at Windmill Point went high just before dawn, dropped to low around 10:35 AM, then swing back up for a strong afternoon bite at 4:21 PM. Moderate tidal swings mean good current for active feeding, especially during the moving water around mid-morning and late afternoon.

Weather is frankly perfect—mild early summer temps, light southwesterly breeze, and the forecast calls for mostly sunny skies, so both boaters and pier anglers will be comfortable out there.

Fishing is on fire across the Bay, with the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (CBBT) stealing the show. Sheepshead are in top form, stacking up around the CBBT pilings and taking live and frozen fiddler crabs fished on bottom sweeper jigs. Reports from kayak anglers along the Virginia Beach bridges and between the second and third islands of the CBBT include sheepshead limits plus some bonus tautog. If you’re after numbers and size, frozen fiddler or live fiddler crabs are the clear winners, and you’ll find tautog, black drum, and even some red drum lurking nearby as well (Way South Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report, June 2025).

Spadefish action is heating up, especially at the Light Tower and out on nearshore wrecks. For these, try cut clams or small pieces of jellyball jellyfish under a float right tight to structure—can’t miss right now (Virginia Saltwater Fishing Report, June 2025).

Red drum are schooling around the shallow flats and near the CBBT islands, with some now moving off to deeper structure as waters warm up. If you locate a school, big paddletails or straight tails on heavy jigheads (two-ounce) are your ticket to a trophy red. Black drum remain thick around the islands and Bay structure too.

Cobia are starting to show in better numbers, especially on the oceanfront shoals and just inside the Bay mouth. The season opens June 15th, but folks spotting them on the surface are finding willing biters using bucktails, topwater plugs, and shallow-diving twitchbaits. Get ready with live eels once the opener hits for best results. Spanish mackerel and bluefish are also moving in, with bluefish up to three pounds showing on the reefs and around the target ships.

Flounder are biting along the CBBT and the southside inlets—Gulp! baits tipped with minnow or squid strips have been killer.

Hot spots this week: focus on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel for sheepshead, tautog, and drum; the Chesapeake Light Tower for spadefish; and the shallow flats near Cape Charles and Fisherman’s Island for bull reds. The inlets—Rudee, Lynnhaven, and the Elizabeth River—are still pumping out good numbers of speckled trout, including a few trophy fish.

Thanks for tuning in to your daily Chesapeake Bay fishing report. Don’t forget to subscribe for more local knowledge and fishing intel. This has been a Quiet Please production, for more check out quietplease dot ai.