Fishing forecast for Virginia Beach, VA

Virginia Beach fronts both the Chesapeake Bay, with 1.5 miles of sandy bay beach at First Landing State Park, and the Atlantic Ocean. The 17.6-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel crosses the bay mouth, where the largest estuary in the United States, as NOAA describes the bay, meets the ocean. Virginia's saltwater fishing calendar lists striped bass in every month, cobia from May through September and Spanish mackerel from June through October.

Best fishing times in Virginia Beach this week

Majors run an hour either side of the moon crossing the meridian over Virginia Beach, VA; 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 Virginia Beach

This page is built around Chesapeake Bay mouth, with Atlantic surf in reach — salt water, about 10 minutes from the middle of Virginia Beach.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel crosses the bay mouth on four manmade islands built with more than 1.1 million tons of rock and on more than 5,150 concrete pilings. Virginia's saltwater fishing calendar names it as a place to fish for striped bass, flounder, tautog, sheepshead, spadefish and gray trout.

Virginia's saltwater angler's guide lists red drum, Spanish mackerel, bluefish, flounder, striped bass and kingfish among the game fish of the surf zone and near-shore waters. The Sandbridge Little Island Fishing Pier, a cooperative project with the City of Virginia Beach, stands on the Atlantic side just north of Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

Virginia's saltwater fishing calendar names the 2nd and 3rd islands of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel as a black drum location, with a peak there from late June to early August, and lists the stretch between the 4th island and the high-level bridge for small gray trout.

The nearest grids we publish are Baltimore, MD (277 km, Chesapeake Bay) and Philadelphia, PA (352 km, Delaware River (tidal)). Different water, and different minutes.

What you can catch in Virginia Beach

State listings put these 6 fish in the water around Virginia Beach. Plan around the peak, not the open season.

Cobia usually appear in Chesapeake Bay waters near the Memorial Day weekend, according to Virginia's saltwater angler's guide, and the state's fishing calendar lists them from May through September, with a peak from mid-June to mid-September.

The National Weather Service says nor'easters along the East Coast are most frequent and most violent between September and April, bringing gale-force winds, rough seas and occasionally coastal flooding.

Virginia's saltwater fishing calendar lists Spanish mackerel from June through October, peaking June through September, in coastal ocean waters off inlets, along tidelines, over coastal wrecks and in the lower bay. It gives trolling and casting to schools of fish as methods, with small spoons, metal lures and small live baits.

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

Water temperature and season in Virginia Beach

Air here swings 38.9 °F across the year, from 42.2 °F in January to 81.1 °F in July. No gauge measures water temperature here, so the chart below is air only.

Monthly climate for Virginia Beach, VA. 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 NORFOLK INTL AP, VA US (USW00013737), 19.8 km from the middle of town, with 28–29 of the thirty years behind each month. No gauge measures water temperature here, so this chart is air only. Water lags air by weeks and the lag grows with depth — a deep reservoir turns later than a shallow bay — so air is never a stand-in for a thermometer in the water. Read into this site on 2026-09-14.

July through September bring 35 percent of the normal year's rain at Norfolk International, a stretch that covers all three Spanish mackerel months and the last two cobia months. The cold end is gentler: January's normal low sits 1.6 degrees above freezing, and no month's normal low goes under it. All of that is air over land. The species list is decided by the water at the bay mouth, and nothing in this table measures it.

Sunrise, sunset and daylight in Virginia Beach

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

The longest day of 2026 is June 21, 14h 41m; the shortest, December 21, 9h 38m. The meridian passing drifts about 50 minutes later daily: a dawn window this week is an afternoon window in a fortnight.

Virginia's saltwater fishing calendar lists striped bass in every month and marks them at peak from September into January and again in May and June, with November and December the peak for large fish. It names the bridge-tunnel, the main bay and the Virginia Capes at the bay mouth as where the fish are most often found.

Virginia's saltwater fishing calendar lists striped bass and tautog in every month, so both appear in July and in December. Cobia, listed from May through September, and Spanish mackerel, listed from June through October, appear in July but not in December.

Virginia's saltwater angler's guide places the state's coastal waters in the Mid-Atlantic Bight, which begins at Cape Hatteras and extends into New England, near where the Gulf Stream meets the cool Labrador Current. It says most fish there migrate into and out of the area seasonally, depending on their preference for warm or cool water.

License and seasons in Virginia

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

Boat ramps and fishing access in Virginia Beach

Public registries put 7 access points within reach of Virginia Beach, 3 of them trailer ramps. The nearest is Virginia Beach Fishing Pier, about 0.7 mi out in a straight line.

7 access points within 25 km of Virginia Beach, VA, 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.