Chesapeake Bay Fishing Report: Sheepshead, Cobia, and More Heating Up for June 11, 2025

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

Sunrise kicked off the day at 5:44 AM, and you can expect sunset around 8:28 PM. Winds early this morning were light out of the southeast, picking up just a bit as the day goes on with highs in the low 80s and partly cloudy skies—a classic June setup. Right now, we’re sitting close to a high tide mid-morning, with the water swinging back out toward low tide late this afternoon—a solid window for both structure and shoreline anglers.

Sheepshead fishing is firing up bigtime at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Both boat and kayak anglers have been pulling in good numbers off the pilings—one group landed seven sheepshead and some nice tautog using frozen fiddler crabs and live fiddlers on bottom sweeper jigs. You’ll also find black drum and even a few red drum around those bridges, plus spadefish stacking up on inshore structures and the Chesapeake Light Tower. Red drum are still roaming the flats, but a lot have started shifting to deeper structure. Folks are locating bull reds around the islands of the CBBT; sidescan sonar helps, but once you’re on them, big paddletails on two-ounce jigheads or a straight-tail plastic is the ticket.

Flounder are heating up around the CBBT and inside the local inlets—try Gulp! baits tipped with minnow or squid strips for the bigger fish. Black drum are still hanging around the islands as well, and the bite is steady, especially on peeler crab or clam.

Cobia are starting to show in stronger numbers at the mouth of the bay, which is always a highlight this time of year. The season opens up June 15th, so get your gear ready—live eels will be killer baits once that green light hits, but you can also tempt them now with bucktails, topwater lures, or shallow diving twitchbaits just inside the bay and along the oceanfront. Spanish mackerel, bluefish, and even a few early summer stripers are popping up around reefs, wrecks, and the mouth of the bay.

The Rappahannock is giving up some trout, drum, croaker, and rockfish, while speckled trout action is best in the grass flats on the eastern side, especially on topwater Spooks early and paddletails as the sun climbs.

If you’re looking for a couple hot spots, head straight to the CBBT islands and pilings—always prime this time of year—or hit Fisherman’s Island for some bull reds and black drum. For flounder or spadefish, the Chesapeake Light Tower is a classic.

Best lures: bottom sweeper jigs with live fiddlers for sheepshead, big paddletails for reds, Gulp! or squid strip for flounder, and bucktails or eels for cobia. For bait, you can’t go wrong with live fiddler crabs, peeler crab, squid, and eels as we get closer to the cobia opener.

Thanks for tuning in to today’s Chesapeake Bay fishing report! Make sure to subscribe for more updates, hot bites, and local advice. This has been a Quiet Please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.