I just started salt fly fishing and In 2 trips I have yet to catch 1 fish…im skunked! I am fishing the Chesapeake bay area. Ive tried 20 ft to 3 ft of water , drop offs , night time with bait fish everywhere. Ive been using Chart and white dna Clousers , white and glow in the dark orange , surf candy, decievers , etc.
Can some pass along a little advice to a newbie?? My current line in a sinking tip.
Hard to catch anything if there’s no fish around.
Around here the water is just recently cooled enough for stripers to make a return.
Albies, bonito, and blues are around in good numbers but travel in pods and schools
Fishing blind works in the early season but this time of year, game fish are schooled up and following schools of bait fish.
You need to find bait that’s being harassed by predators
It’s usually pretty obvious.
I always keep an eye on the birds this time of year, gulls in particular
The presence of terns and cormorants will show you that there’s bait around.
Gulls on the other hand usually rely on game fish to do their dirty work
If I see 5 or 6 gulls just sitting on the water, I’ll hang around and wait too.
Something either just happened or they’re waiting for something to happen
When I see a few gulls flying low in the same direction I’ll follow.
I’ll watch single gulls while they’re scouting. Often they’ll hover and give and area a good look. They might be looking at a crab or a piece of flotsam, then again they may be looking at a game fish.
In the late season it’s feast or famine, there’s either fish or there’s not
In the spring it’s “find the bait and you’ve found the fish”.
In the fall there’s more to it.
What part of the Bay are you fishing, Upper, middle or lower? If you are fishing middle and have access to a boat, I may be able to offer some tips, not sure though.
Id consider the area I fish the Middle bay and Ive been fishing the Tanger area - Manokin River & Coulbourne creek . Yes I have a boat ,its a old beater but it gets the job done.
I might try tommorrow on the Manokin again at Teagues Creek perhaps around 6 -7 am if the tides right and I get off work early
Are you anywhere close to Solomons Island?
I just looked. Are you between Salsbury and Ocean City?
Yep Im between Oc and Salisbury. Salomons Island is across the bay .
I am going to feel bad about this. Most of my Bay fishing has been done around the Solomons area. I don’t know if this will help much but my luck this time of year and later has been on the main part of the Bay and closer to channels. You will never go wrong fishing a medium to fast sinking line and also using a Clouser minnow. I am sorry I can’t be of more help. Hopefully someone from that area will come along and give you better advise.
What depths do you think the rock are hanging when not busting bait fish? Im thinking the end of the month may draw them into shallow water.
JRA, Somewhere in the 30 + or - range. A little later, even deeper. It doesn’t mean there wouldn’t be some in the shallows but you nailed it when you said things had to be right, tide as well as other factors.
i think its just bad luck 
Make that 3 days …went out this morning…I did do some buttom fishing and had a big hit on that rod so I put the fly rod which I had just cast in the holder , lost the fish on the buttom rig. I cast it back over and as im setting it in the holder something grabs the clouser On ther fly rod I had sat down and in tearing at the drag…It broke my leader 
Im guessing I must have snagged it on something.
Got home to find the wife fixing me a luch of sirlion steak 
Im guessing she wants something.
Oh well got some perch and BIG spot to fry up tonight along with some softcrabs and I gonna steam me a dozen crabs …can someone say Miller time!
what size leader where you using?
JRA-
Dudley is right on with his advice.
Nothing works 100% of the time, but here are some things to try if you haven?t already.
Midday, fish may be in deeper 20-30? holes in the bay, but may also be moving much shallower during low light if there?s bait around. Remember stripers are primarily nocturnal. As it gets cooler, and there?s less boat traffic, more bait etc, they?ll be where the bait is, sometimes in inches of water when they?ve cornered a school and much more likely to blitz in schools and actively cruise and feed as singles in bright daylight.
-Look for signs of life, gulls soaring, often have spotted deep schools of baitfish, singles flying low in a searching pattern are actively looking for baitfish, hovering usually means that they?ve spotted something. Obviously if gulls or terns are wheeling and diving, you?re going to be in big time. Especially since you?re mobile, you may want to take along a pair of binocs to spot them. Cormorants, loons etc are good to watch too. They fish for a living. A good pair of polarized sunglasses and a baseball hat with a bill is a good idea. What is the size, profile of the bait that you see? Small rainbait? Sandeels? Tiny crabs? Grass shrimp? Squid? Big honking menhaden?
-The season is changing, fish patterns also. Fish will be starting to pod up now so schools will be easier to spot as the season progresses. In the summer stripers are often an early dusk, night, and dawn type thing. Those times are always best in terms of odds, but as fall approaches there?s likely to be more daytime action as water cools, less boat traffic, and concentrated schools of bait form up. So the fishing is bound to get better. Any time on the water is good. Low light and weekdays with less boat traffic will up your odds, especially in shallow water spots.
-Pay attention to ?landscape?, tides, currents and moons. Look for long points, choke points, bridge pilings, and rivers that dump into the bay. Rips often set up on specific tides, in these spots, so try to find them. They?re fish magnets. Other spots are deep holes, cuts or channels near flats, and ponds/marshes that drain on out going water. Inlets often fish very well on an outgoing tide, especially this time of year if you have mullet and bay anchovies down there, and they often get pushed and trapped in coves this time of year by bass and blues. Rocky points, cobble bottoms, oyster bars and often hold more life than sand bottoms. Mudflats may have ginormous worm hatches on new and full moons. Stripers can be selective when this happens, but patterns like Paolo Worms, Cinder Worms and even Wooly Buggers with orange/reddish bodies and peacock herl head on size 2 hook often work for this. These hatches are more typically a spring thing up here, but I?ve seen them late summer too. Ask around down there to see what?s up with them, and get local size/colors, since they can vary widely).
-Get a chart and tide tables and current listings if you don?t have them already. Note that moving water can be quite different than the high and low tide listings. Be mindful of wind direction too, because this can really help set up rips when current and wind are going head to head, especially on full and new moons when the tide is ripping. Sudden coldfronts, like winds out of the NE can really shake things up too, and get big schools of mullet and other baitfish moving this time of year.
-Position your boat up tide from a spot you want to fish and cast across or up current to allow the fly to sink into the zone. Feed more line to let your fly settle as it straightens. Even a sinking line will ride up when it comes tight against strong current. Try ?counting down? different numbers before you retrieve, until you hit bottom so you know how long to wait before the retrieve, and if you get a fish you?ll know about how deep they are. Try dead drifting, as well as slow retrieves. Short leaders (4-5?) on a sink tip will make the fly ride deeper than longer leaders.
-Other boats. Knowing where other sharpies fish is a good clue of course, but it?s not just the spot. What?s the structure of this spot? What is the tide/wind doing? What are other spots on my map that look similar for this tide and wind? Commericial fishing boats/baymen often stir up the bottom, and if you have shrimpers, often throw by-catch overboard, so look to be respectfully down current of them and drifting your fly back to see if anyone is home.
-Fishing breaking fish, don?t run over the school with your boat, and to a lesser extent your line. Stay up current off to the side of their path and fish the edges. If there just seem to be small blues on top, often there are bass on the trailing edge or underneath, so let your fly sink to target them. A dead drift often works if fast and slow retrieves don?t.
Above all, remember it?s fishing, and there are no guarantees. Every trip is an opportunity to learn something. The bass that hit your clouser on a dead rod, may have liked a dead drift, or might have had time to reach deeper water than you were normally fishing. Good things will happen if you put your time in.
Good luck!
Peregrines
I was with him sat night, and i can say there was no lack of baitfish in the water. they were everywhere. we did hit the points, dropoffs, shallow, mid depths, ect. i was using an int line, jra was using a 225gr sink tip. various flies were tried. the baitfish were silversides, but the only thing i saw chasing them were needlefish/pipefish.
We hit a hard incoming tide and alot of silversides but no fish
peregrines - What do you mean by dead drift.
I just wish my grandfather was still alive .Those old watermen had “the wisdom”. They could really read what every crab and fish was doing. I recall my fishing trips with him and how we almost always had plenty caught in a short time.
JRA,
A dead drift is just a fly you allow to drift in the current with no retrieve. Often fished like a trout wet fly casting across and down current and swung until it?s directly below you, perhaps letting more line out to drift back. It can imitate a dead or injured baitfish, just floating along. Sometimes it works if you?re not getting any strikes on a fast or slow retrieve. It sounds like the striper that hit your clouser when you set the fly rod down may have liked it.
It sounds like you were in a good spot? but the stripers weren?t. Absent signs of feeding fish, I?d look for places where currents crash against each other to form rips and seams and eddies. Stripers love moving water and baitfish are easy pickings. Stay up current and feed your fly into the rip on a sinker.
I?ve never fished down there, so take this with a grain of salt. But I just took a look at Google maps and man that area looks really fishy, lots of river mouths, lots of points and islands. Not sure where you fish, but the flats around those islands across the channel from Deal Island look awesome. Is this any where near you? From the satellite photo it looks to be a sand bottom, so fish will be cruising as opposed to holding since it doesn?t look like there?s a lot of structure. Drifting your boat across those on incoming, casting perpendicular to current, is bound to pick up a fish eventually especially in low light. In daylight there are probably fish hanging nearby in cuts and channels. And the area on the Eastern Shore between Deal Island and Crisfield looks like a food factory with all the creek mouths. I?d try to hit those flats on the beginning of out going to catch stripers coming in to feed on critters being swept out to deeper water casting from a boat in water 4-6 deep parallel to shore to intercept as many paths of stripers heading from deeper water (since they will often swim head into current).
On an incoming, I?d probably try motoring up one of the larger rivers to see if there are spots where the river current trying to flow out creates seams or rips with incoming tide… Looking at the map, the tides will flow North on incoming and South on outgoing and your prevailing wind will most likely be out of the SW. Are there places where there are rips on the outgoing off the southern tip of Crocheron or the point south of Nanticoke? Off the point near Elliot Island Road on an incoming (across that inlet thing east of Toddville)?
Good luck! You’ll get 'em.
Peregrines
Peregrines - Ive got a spot picked out at Nanticoke just across from Roaring point that hard to get to (very shallow) but once you get in this small creek theres corners with 24 ft of water and a rather hard current because thousands of acres of marsh drain . Ive always done well there on perch so perhaps Ill give it a try this weekend.
As for Crocheron and Toddville , I was raised in that area (Hoopers Island) and Ive really been wanting to visit family and bring the boat its just hard to find the time.
Thanks for all the advice and please keep it coming.
I think getting skunked is just something that goes with salt water fishing. There’s a lot of water out there, and it’s hard to find fish – unless you’re got a boat with electronics, and on a radio network that will tip you off how everybody else is doing. The guides on the Jersey shore cooperate over the radio to help them find fish. But if you’re shore-bound, I think getting skunked is just part of your experience.
I met a guy at Sandy Hook last year. He said he was there every Friday, and about 1 out of 9 Fridays, it was great. It sucked the other Fridays. That day I was wearing myself out blind casting, and he was mostly walking around looking for baitfish. I did get two shorts that day, and I’m pretty sure he got skunked. He said he almost never did well unless he could see bait in the water.
I’ve found that the presence of Comorants is a good sign. The Comorants won’t be fishing unless there’s bait around. If a Comorant is fishing in an area, I can often pick up a fish there, even if it isn’t exactly great fishing.
JRA,
Do fish off the eastern shore further north or south of there? Not sure where you are.
I just tried to take a wild guess where you fish, based on the bay closest to Pittsville MD, so it may not be worth a long run if it?s far from where you normally go. And it?s hard to tell from SAT pictures, and stuff. But those areas look very fishy from 300 miles away. In fact I think I see one with your name on it.
This time of year, I think you?re best off glassing for birds and looking for actively feeding fish on top. If none are around, concentrate on rips with big flies. I mostly fish from shore, so I?m not as mobile as you are in a boat and don?t have access to 30-40 ? holes. If I had a boat, I?d be banging rips. If I?m fishing blind (not to fish that I can see), I start off throwing biggish 2/0 or 3/0 flies on the theory that since I don?t know where a fish is, she/he, is going to have to find me. A bigger fly creates more of a disturbance, and is easier to see. It?s also hopefully a big enough meal for a fish to move to, especially smart big ones that have to expend more energy to get it. Besides you should be lousy with big menhaden this time of year. If I saw anchovies, silversides or sandeels spraying, I?d size down after trying unsuccessfully with bigger ones, but it could just be snappers (baby bluefish) chasing them.
A good fly for a rip is a sparsely dressed Half and Half (just a Deceiver tail on a Clouser). This represents something big and meaty? prime food for big bass. I dress mine with just one hackle on each side for a tail. (2 at the most) This helps the fly get down. I use ?? eyes on a 2/0 hook to really get down. All chartreuse (very visible at depth and in stained water) and all white seem to work best, tho I?ve had some luck on all black and ?blurple? (black head and purple tail). The weight doesn?t make them the most fun flies to cast blind, so I?d probably start out higher in the water column with a 2/0 or 3/0 Deceiver, and then switch to a Half and Half to go deeper if that didn?t work. To get down with the Half and Half count to 10 Missippi?s for a couple of casts, 20, 30 40, etc until you?re sure you?re hitting bottom. You may even have to cast up current to get down to depth.Once you hit bottom, you can adjust to keep it just over it. If you hook fish at 30, then you know what level they?re hanging.
You should start keeping a log too, if you aren?t already. Take note of time of day, moon stage, weather, wind direction and strength, tide stage, type of bottom, and locations fished. Note stuff that you see, rips that have formed, signs of bait, whether other boats have caught anything. Record all the trips not just the ones you caught fish. Note down things, like if you notice a rip on the way in, and didn?t have time to fish it, write it down any way. This way you?ll be able to develop patterns overtime. You?ll know which early flats to fish in spring (dark mud bottoms since they?ll warm up first), what?s a good spot on an outgoing vs incoming.
Also plan on moving around a lot. Never leave fish to find fish, but once you fish a spot thoroughly with no luck, or no sign of actively feeding fish don?t expect it to get better. It might, but it?s probably not going to happen. Glass around and look for birds, then head to another back up spot in the area. It helps to sort of preplan your trips, in your head at least before a trip with a couple of different types of spots on specific tides while you?re trying to pattern the fish. Example, plan on fishing a rip deep in early afternoon when the sun is up, then a move to a river mouth, or channel drop off then a 3-4 foot deep flat in early evening in lower light. Channels running east-west or holes should be good on either tide provided there?s enough water to on either side of them for you to float your boat through them and drag your fly down and up the slopes. Obviously if you hook up stay wherever you are till you catch ?em all.
The other thing I would say is that fish will generally face and swim into the current. So if you?re fishing blind to unseen potential fish, your casts should be cross current so it will swing ?downstream? across as many potential fish lanes as possible, like swinging a streamer or wet fly in a trout stream if you?ve done that .
Hope this helps. Keep us posted on how you?re doing. I know you?ll hook up, just a matter of time.
peregrines
Currently finding larger bait fish like bunker in the rivers will proably be hard ,Im guess the warmer shallow waters keep them out .Maybe next trip ill aim for more open deeper water and do like you said and search for the bait fish.