We can relate to this...

[WOOD YAK]

A nice Rockfish article we can all relate to. Makes me wish I was fishing right now...Happy Thanksgiving! http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/sp...iver.html?_r=0

[brianisoutside]

That was a good read. If you haven't been to New England you owe it to yourself, the rock coast and tidal flats have a unique personality of their own


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[ronaultmtd]

Yep- I used to go to Portsmouth NH a lot...doing my job...Warn's Lobster House...L.L. Bean...The Trading Post...

[brianisoutside]

Yep- I used to go to Portsmouth NH a lot...doing my job...Warn's Lobster House...L.L. Bean...The Trading Post...

I have family in the area, Kittery, Portsmouth and lived in Dover until I was 12. My dads job at pnsy moved him down here. Love it when I get to visit.


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[ronaultmtd]

I have lots of friends at the yard...I used to go to the Navy Yard at least twice every year (along with my visits to the other three Navy Yards) and really looked forward to a clam belly feast...one of my good friends is a lobsterman there and I have eaten lobsters just about every way it is possible to prepare them...my favorite is a bucket of claws at Warn's...

[Mark]

Thank you for sharing the article, Wood Yak.

I noted this quote from it immediately:

"After several years of disappointing action, their annual migration north from the Chesapeake stirred in me an excitement I hadn’t expected.
As a fishing guide years ago, stripers had provided an income, enabling me to live by the tides and breathe the salt air daily. Now they were back."

Let's hope the reemergence of stripers in the north is due in part to our conservation efforts here and that a successful day for us is not measured in keepers but in how many keepers we release just as the article's author discovered.

[Kevin21012]

Great article but I had to laugh. The author details how he finds fish through "meticulous journal" keeping and observations like "watching the body language, movements and direction of the gulls, kingfishers, seals, cormorants, bald eagles, osprey and herons that accompanied me on the river." Then he ends the article by saying the at the end of October "Inexplicably, and without warning, the fish had disappeared." Huh??

Kevin
Jackson Kraken

[Romo]

Yea get with the times buddy. Who needs log books and journals and the facial expressions of bald eagles when you have facebook and instragram! Ha good read though makes me wish it was spring already

Great article but I had to laugh. The author details how he finds fish through "meticulous journal" keeping and observations like "watching the body language, movements and direction of the gulls, kingfishers, seals, cormorants, bald eagles, osprey and herons that accompanied me on the river." Then he ends the article by saying the at the end of October "Inexplicably, and without warning, the fish had disappeared." Huh??

Kevin
Jackson Kraken

[ronaultmtd]

Fish bite...when they bite- helps to understand tide conditions, water temps, moon phases, migration patterns, bait availability, etc. but sometime the strangest things happen that just doesn't add up...and you say...huh? That is why it is called fishing and not catching...I'd rather be lucky than good...

[yakscientist]

A good friend of mine, Capt Pete Ide, didn't see a single rockfish for his first 7 years of chartering on the Bay. He survived off of croaker and bluefish charters in the beginning, as the rockfish had all but disappeared. So we have come a long way indeed. I do wish that fishing penalties were a bit stiffer though. Not petty things like not having your license on you, which is sometimes easy to forget, but for the repeat offenders who catch and kill dozens of undersize fish every single time. Who knows how many times they get away with it? It's really frustrating to know how much effort anglers, and for the most part, most people who enjoy MD waterways, put towards keeping them clean and full of life, only to see MD DNR Nat Res Police releases with guys who've been caught for the 5th time with 50 undersize rockfish, or 2 bushels of undersize crabs. But regardless, certainly a good article. I think the exploding popularity of kayak fishing, particularly in our area, will only produce good things for the MD economy and the health of the Bay.

[Romo]

I will tell you that the DNR has been patrolling the Susky HEAVILY for the past couple springs. I'm talking using night vision to spot people through the woods fishing in closed areas, setting up stings on herring creeks, etc. I had a long chat with a DNR guy this Spring and he told me his team of 3-4 guys were getting 50 people a day for fishing in closed areas and keeping illegal bass/herring/shad and I believe him. They don't publicize their efforts, though, and the fine is just a $250 ticket and possible gear confiscation (basically only if you mouth off from what I gathered). I guess there is only so much they can do with the resources they have. Stopping this kind of activity in the spawning zones should lead to more fish in the bay.

A good friend of mine, Capt Pete Ide, didn't see a single rockfish for his first 7 years of chartering on the Bay. He survived off of croaker and bluefish charters in the beginning, as the rockfish had all but disappeared. So we have come a long way indeed. I do wish that fishing penalties were a bit stiffer though. Not petty things like not having your license on you, which is sometimes easy to forget, but for the repeat offenders who catch and kill dozens of undersize fish every single time. Who knows how many times they get away with it? It's really frustrating to know how much effort anglers, and for the most part, most people who enjoy MD waterways, put towards keeping them clean and full of life, only to see MD DNR Nat Res Police releases with guys who've been caught for the 5th time with 50 undersize rockfish, or 2 bushels of undersize crabs. But regardless, certainly a good article. I think the exploding popularity of kayak fishing, particularly in our area, will only produce good things for the MD economy and the health of the Bay.

[yakscientist]

I will tell you that the DNR has been patrolling the Susky HEAVILY for the past couple springs. I'm talking using night vision to spot people through the woods fishing in closed areas, setting up stings on herring creeks, etc. I had a long chat with a DNR guy this Spring and he told me his team of 3-4 guys were getting 50 people a day for fishing in closed areas and keeping illegal bass/herring/shad and I believe him. They don't publicize their efforts, though, and the fine is just a $250 ticket and possible gear confiscation (basically only if you mouth off from what I gathered). I guess there is only so much they can do with the resources they have. Stopping this kind of activity in the spawning zones should lead to more fish in the bay.

Yeah I do agree they're doing all they can with the laws that are in place. I definitely respect their work, and I worked for DNR myself for a summer, albeit in a different department (field water quality monitoring). So I saw firsthand how little of a budget they really have, which is sad. I also think it's important to always report things you may see on the water, like blatant creel limit violations, etc.

[ronaultmtd]

A few years ago I was telling several Hispanic fellows who did not speak English that the redfish they had in 5 gallon plastic buckets were not croakers and were illegal to keep...Piney Point...had the exact same experience at Point Lookout State Park...ignorance of the law is not an excuse DNR accepts