Good morning, folks — Artificial Lure here with your Charles River fishing rundown for Boston.

For Wednesday morning, the river’s shaping up to be a moving-tide game. The key bite windows are usually that first light push and the last couple hours before dark, and the Charles likes a little current to wake the fish up. With a late-May sun, sunrise comes early and sunset runs into the evening, so there’s a solid full-day window to chase bass, perch, and the occasional surprise pickerel or striper that noses up from the harbor side when conditions line up.

According to the weather outlook for Boston, expect a mild spring day with comfortable air temps, some cloud cover at times, and a light breeze at the water. That’s pretty good river weather — enough chop to break up the surface without making it ugly. If the wind stays light, topwater can be worth a look near dawn; if it gets brighter and calmer, switch to subsurface.

Tide-wise, the Charles is all about timing. The best action usually comes on the incoming tide and the first part of the outgoing, especially where current sweeps past rocks, bridges, seawalls, and the mouths of smaller cuts. When the water starts moving, bait gets pushed, and the predators follow. If you can fish the turn of the tide, you’re doing it right.

Recent local reports from Boston-area anglers have been pointing to steady schoolie bass action, a mix of yellow perch and sunfish in the calmer stretches, and some largemouth in the backwater pockets and marina edges. A few fish have been coming on small paddletails, Ned rigs, soft plastics, and little inline spinners. Where the water’s a touch stained, the bite has leaned more on vibration and scent than on finesse alone.

Best lures for today: a small white or chartreuse paddletail on a light jighead, a 3-inch swimbait, a Ned rig in green pumpkin, and a small topwater walker or popper if the surface is calm at sunrise. If you’re working the shallows or the slower edges, a spinnerbait or a minnow plug can also pick off active fish. Best bait? Live shiners if you can get them, or nightcrawlers for perch, panfish, and bonus bass. A piece of worm under a float near a current seam can flat-out save the day.

Hot spots worth checking: the Esplanade stretches with current breaks and shadow lines; the area around the Longfellow and Harvard bridges for structure and moving water; and the calm pockets near the Lower Basin and back edges where warmer water and bait tend to collect. If you’ve got access farther downriver, any bend, riprap bank, or bridge shadow is a good bet.

Fish the moving water, stay mobile, and don’t be afraid to downsize if the bite gets finicky. That’s the Charles in late spring — patient, a little tricky, but very fishable when you time it right.

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