Fishing forecast for Baltimore, MD

Baltimore sits on the tidal Patapsco River off the Chesapeake Bay, which NOAA calls the largest estuary in the United States. Locally the striped bass is called rockfish, and Maryland named it the official state fish in 1965. Seventy to 90 percent of the Atlantic striped bass population uses the bay to spawn, from April to early June in its tidal tributaries.

Best fishing times in Baltimore this week

Majors run an hour either side of the moon crossing the meridian over Baltimore, MD; minors, half an hour either side of moonrise and moonset. Where those widths come from: best fishing times and how we compute these times.

When these windows are not the right tool

Solunar theory is John Alden Knight's 1926 prediction; the ±60 and ±30 minute widths are convention, not calculation. The times are computed astronomy, the claim that fish feed inside them is not. The day rating follows moon phase — identical nationwide, so every city shows it the same. A moving front beats the moon: apps that read pressure.

Where to fish in Baltimore

This page is built around Chesapeake Bay, with Patapsco in reach — salt water, about 15 minutes from the middle of Baltimore.

Rockfish in Maryland means striped bass. On the Pacific coast the same word means Sebastes, a completely unrelated reef fish. The species pages on this site keep the two apart deliberately for that reason.

White perch are common in nearly every bay river and rarely weigh more than a pound, and Maryland's Canton Waterfront Park page lists them among the fish of the tidal Patapsco. Their spawning runs begin when the water warms in late March, as adults move upstream to fresh or slightly brackish water.

Baltimore City Recreation and Parks lists fishing piers among the features of Middle Branch Park, with a boat ramp at adjacent Broening Park and crabbing, kayaking and canoeing on the water.

The nearest grids we publish are Philadelphia, PA (144 km, Delaware River (tidal)) and Virginia Beach, VA (277 km, Chesapeake Bay mouth). Different water, and different minutes.

What you can catch in Baltimore

State listings put these 5 fish in the water around Baltimore. Plan around the peak, not the open season.

After spawning in the spring, the bay's striped bass stock moves to coastal waters. Juveniles live in the shallows of tidal rivers through the summer, and most spend their first two years of life in the river where they were born.

In warm summer months the layering of warm, light fresh water over cold, dense saltwater is strong, and deep, bowl-shaped areas of the bay's bottom can be cut off from oxygen. Fish and crabs can move away from that water; oysters, fixed in place, are particularly vulnerable.

Adult blue catfish usually stay under two feet long, but they can reach five feet and weigh more than 100 pounds. NOAA Fisheries calls them quite tasty and a good source of nutrition, and credits marketing efforts, particularly in Maryland, for growing the bay's commercial blue catfish fishery since the early 2000s.

Tackle sits outside a forecast page: start with how to catch striped bass.

Water temperature and season in Baltimore

Air here swings 44.0 °F across the year, from 34.3 °F in January to 78.3 °F in July. Water is measured separately, and it is not the same number: against these air normals the gauge reads 11.4 °F warmer in October and 0.1 °F colder in April.

Monthly climate for Baltimore, MD. The air line is the NOAA NCEI climate normal for 1991–2020 — the thirty-year average of a calendar month, not the weather of any one year — measured at BALTIMORE WASH INTL AP, MD US (USW00093721), 15.1 km from the middle of town, with 28–29 of the thirty years behind each month. The water line is neither a normal nor the air: hourly readings at NOAA gauge Baltimore (8574680), 3.8 km out, averaged by calendar month over 2015–2025 — 10–11 complete years per month. It is the surface at the gauge, not the water on any particular spot, and it lags the air by weeks, so the two lines are not interchangeable. Read into this site on 2026-09-14.

Water at the Baltimore gauge holds summer longer than the airport does. July and August both average above 82 degrees, and the coolest July in the record still came in at 81.3; in September the water sits near 78 while the air averages 69. The loose end of the year is early spring: March water has ranged across more than twelve degrees between years, so the same calendar week can find very different water.

Sunrise, sunset and daylight in Baltimore

The moon window moves daily; the sun does not. Plan a season against this block.

The longest day of 2026 is June 21, 14h 56m; the shortest, December 21, 9h 24m. The meridian passing drifts about 50 minutes later daily: a dawn window this week is an afternoon window in a fortnight.

Blue catfish are not native to the bay. They come from the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio river basins, were introduced to Virginia's James, Rappahannock and York rivers in the 1970s and 1980s as a recreational catch, and can be found in almost every major tributary in the watershed.

Canton Waterfront Park in Baltimore has an accessible fishing pier and two concrete boat ramps on the tidal Patapsco River, and anglers there can fish from the pier, the shoreline or a boat.

Striped bass spawn from April to early June, and blue catfish spawn once a year between April and June. Bluefish visit the bay from spring through autumn, are common most years in the upper bay as far north as Baltimore, and migrate out in early autumn to winter off Florida. Blue catfish seek cooler water in summer and warmer water in winter.

License and seasons in Maryland

Rules for Maryland come from the Maryland agency, and the calculation behind the table is set out in how we compute these times.

Boat ramps and fishing access in Baltimore

Public registries put 45 access points within reach of Baltimore, 20 of them trailer ramps. The nearest is Boston Street Pier Park, about 1.7 mi out in a straight line.

45 access points within 25 km of Baltimore, MD, from the agency registry and OpenStreetMap — the same records the table below lists. Each dot is a record its source publishes, not a place we have visited; click one for what that source says. The dashed ring is that 25 km circle, centred on the point every distance is measured from — click that centre for its coordinates, even when a cluster sits on it. Zoom in to split a cluster.