Fishing News and Forecasts

Maryland Fishing Preview 2010 by Captain C.D. Dollar

It’s an understatement to say 2009 was a tough year across the board, and it was an especially arduous one for people who make a living outdoors and in the maritime trades. So it’s with vigor that I o er a collective good riddance to last year’s scal briar patch and welcome in 2010. Historically, sport shing has o ered a respite from the daily grind, with spring signaling the start to the shing year. Fishing is often cited as a metaphor for hope; after all, each cast brings the opportunity for something magical and exciting to happen, and ultimately those who hang up there the longest often reap the best rewards.

On both the state and federal levels, there’s a fair bit of change on the political sheries front, including the National Saltwater Angler Registry (countmy sh.noaa.gov/register). See page 73 for news of the new regulations.

Yellow Perch

The rst sh Maryland sport anglers typically chase are yellow perch, colloquially called neds. In some river systems, there is an abundance of neds, thanks in part to a relatively new law that bans commercial nets in upper tributaries where yellow perch gather to spawn.

Photos by C.D. Dollar

e bene ts of restricted netting were almost immediate. Last year, many sport shermen hailed the yellow perch run as the best in decades, and for some, it marked the best season ever. ese beautifully colored pan sh are great sport on ultra-light tackle, preferring minnows shed on light jig heads. ey will hit spinners and ies, with white, purple, and chartreuse the favored colors of this writer.

Maryland has thousands of miles of tidal and freshwater creeks and streams; many teem with aquatic life, while others barely cling to life. Last year, the Susquehanna, North East, and Choptank Rivers held good numbers of neds. Typically, the run begins mid-February and lasts through early March, but it’s anyone’s guess how this wild winter might a ect the shing. Crappie and pickerel are often caught in these same creeks.

A little later in the spring, peaking from mid-April to early May, should be the hickory and white shad runs. Look to the lower Susquehanna creeks to catch these oceanic sh.

Spring Striper Season

For many shermen, the arrival of migrating striped bass heralds in the shing year. And each season, more shermen are “preseason trolling” for rock sh, usually beginning in March. Both recreational shermen and charter boat captains take part in this shery, deploying heavy boat rods, parachutes, and bucktails to troll during the o cial trophy season, which begins April 17. ere isn’t any data to show if this type of trolling adversely a ects Chesapeake spawners, which comprise most of the brood stock along the Atlantic coast. What also isn’t clear is how many shermen actually take part in this trolling preseason.

In response to concerns, last fall, Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) held public meetings and solicited input from sport shing groups, the Sport Fish Advisory Commission, and Tidal Fish Advisory Commission. at feedback, combined with guidance from DNR biologists, formed the bedrock of new regulations, which covers March 1 through the third Friday in April. Speci cally, the action prohibits the use of stinger hooks, requires barbless hooks to be used when

trolling, requires the use of circle hooks or J hooks with a gap of less than one-half inch when using bait, and restricts boats to use no more than six lines when trolling, regardless of the number of individuals onboard the vessel. e proposed regulations will take e ect March 8. And as a side note, I would be surprised if there isn’t discussion about restricting planer boards. e 10-year old “catch-and-release” striped bass season on the Susquehanna Flats kicks o March 1 and runs through May 3. e last couple of seasons have been slightly o , but it can provide worldclass action, especially if the herring arrive in force and weather cooperates. It’s a light tackle and y shing game, and when the water is dirty or chilly, some shermen drift live or dead herring, using a 4/0-8/0 circle hook, which is mandatory. Rig a three-way or sh nder with one to three ounces of weight, and then allow the bait to drift back behind your anchored boat. When the rock takes the bait, reel slowly until the line comes tight with the sh, and once you set the hook, reel in steadily. I use a cradle net to land and safely release cow stripers. Always have pliers, dehookers, and a camera ready.

For spincasters, use rods of medium to medium-heavy action matched with a reel loaded with 15-pound test line. Favorite soft plastics include Bass Assassins, BKDs, Storm’s Wildeye Shads, H&H’s Cocohoe Minnow, and Tony spoons. Crankbaits are favored by some shermen. Nothing beats a topwater strike! I like the behemoth Amazon River popper, Smack-its, Creek Chub’s Knucklehead, and Chug Bugs. Switch out treble hooks for single hooks. For y shermen, a quality nine-weight y out t does the trick; though for tossing an oversized popper, a 10-weight is a better choice. Clousers, Deceivers, and Half-nHalfs are proven sh catchers when shed on an intermediate or sinking line. e highlight for many anglers is the Chesapeake’s spring trophy season, which opens April 17 and runs through May 15. In Maryland’s spring season, each sport sherman can catch one striper at 28 inches per day. If last season is any guide, the season should see plenty of healthy rock sh entering our waters. For the most part, trolling is the preferred method to target the big rock sh heading to and returning from spawning grounds.

Photos by C.D. Dollar

Troll east-west across the Bay’s main channel, working the contours from 45 to 90 feet. Migrant rock use the drowned ancient Susquehanna riverbed as an aquatic “highway” up the Bay and back down to the ocean. Don’t wet a line until you mark bait on the sh nder. For lures, it’s fairly basic; they ought to mimic the herring that are also breeding in the Bay’s tributaries. So that means large tandem and single bucktails and parachutes (four to 16 ounces) rigged with big rubber shads (nine to 12 inches). Ruby-lipped bucktails in colors of white, chartreuse, and “alien” purple and big spoons are perennial favorites. Big bunker spoons and swimming plugs, like Mann’s Stretch 25s and 30s, can also score, and many skippers drag on from the “roof” rod.

Fishing is restricted to the main stem, and year-afteryear hotspots vary depending on the rock sh’s movement. Favorite grounds include deep water o Bay bridges, Bloody Point, Solomons, Chesapeake Beach, and south to the Middle Grounds.

Once the trophy season ends, Maryland has a two-week transitional period (May 16-31) when we can catch two stripers at 18 to 28 inches or one sh at 18 to 28 inches and one over 28 inches. e tributaries remain closed until June 1.

By May, we begin to see the rst wave of the summer migrants arrive. Speckled trout, spot, croakers, and black drum o er alternatives to fan favorite rock. Chumming and live bait shing, using a circle hook on a sh nder rig with 25-pound uorocarbon and small in-line weights, works well. To catch speckled trout, cast one-fourth- to

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three-eighth-ounce jig heads tipped with plastic swimbaits such as Bass Assassins and Gulp! around grass beds and marshy points.

Although most Maryland shermen are still rock sh crazy well into May, you can have legitimate shots at big black drum, some of which top 70-plus pounds. Most are in the 30- to 50-pound range, however. Soft crabs work best, followed closely by peelers; though sea clams, if you can get them, will do in a pinch. e bait must be fresh.

Black drum typically don’t make drag-burning runs; rather, it’s more of a tug of war. So you’ll need a 40- or 50-pound class boat rod and reel teamed with 50- to 60-pound braid. To that tie on a 30-inch section of 50-pound test leader, and use a sh nder rig with a 6/0-10/0 hook and enough weight (one to four ounces) to handle the current. Your bait should naturally bounce on the bottom. Hot spots include the Bomber near Buoy 80A, Stone Rock, and spots o the Choptank River. Each season, enough black are caught in Eastern Bay and the Chester River to make it worth trying those spots when June arrives.

As is the case each year, you can always count on good ol’ white perch, perhaps the most ubiquitous game sh in our part of the Bay. I don’t think we’ll see any sea trout in reliable numbers, a trend that has been working for almost a decade.

Summer

After a brutal winter, many shermen will rejoice once summer arrives and welcome the summer visitors that it brings. For the smaller drums—spot and croakers— the best method to score is bottom shing with bloodworms. By July, we ought to see good numbers of ounder, blue sh, and Spanish mackerel.

Last season, the ounder were in good numbers in both the Bay and coast, yet the season ended in September just as it was getting good. ese waters held nice, legal ounder and ought to again this season: Point Lookout, Tangier Sound, Eastern Bay and omas Point. Drift live minnows, small live spot, or jig-scented arti cial baits such as Gulp! In 2010,

the coastal and Bay regulations will be the same, unlike previous years when there were separate creel and season limits.

June through October usually means live lining spot and jigging for resident rock sh. e last several years, those tasty drum have been the ticket for dinner-sized rock (18-26 inches). Unless Mother Nature culls the number of spot this year, expect this method to again put rock sh in the box.

Casting jigheads and metals over breaking sh should produce as well as it did last year, which was a banner year. A few hot spots in 2009 for all these methods included Eastern Bay, Chesapeake Beach to Parker’s Creek, and the Bay bridges to Podickory Point, though this might change depending on the location of the bait.

From late July through September, I anticipate a nice blue sh and Spanish mackerel run, busting bait from Solomons to Bloody Point. Working birds tips you o to the action. For the Spanish macs, troll (six mph or faster) or cast gold Clark spoons and retrieve them at a fast clip. ey are a hoot to catch and taste great smoked.

We can only be so lucky if we have a repeat of last autumn, when shing in our part of the Chesapeake was ooded with lots of blues and rock—cooler weather moves in, and most summer visitors are still around in good numbers. My expectations are breaking sh and a fantastic shallow water bite. e November-December forecast gets hazy because weather plays a major factor in how long the shing lasts. I’ll crawl on that limb to say we’ll again experience stellar striper shing well into the holidays, as the larger ocean-run rock sh mix with our resident stripers to give us one last hurrah.

O shore

There are many variables, perhaps too many to make an accurate prediction about what the 2010 o shore season may hold. But that’s a huge part of the allure and excitement. We do know that by June, the Ocean City, MD eet kicks o the bluewater season by targeting sharks. Big blue sh should be available a few weeks earlier, yet typically are viewed as a nuisance by many shermen once enough sharks are around.

Unless the warm-water eddies, those shrich ngers that break o the Gulf Stream, remain too far east, expect the bluewater bite to be in full swing by Independence Day. During the heart of summer, seasoned OC pro skippers and sport anglers hook up tuna, bill sh, mahi, and Wahoo, though 2009 wasn’t much better than 2008 overall. e saving grace was reliable mahi (aka dolphin) shing and enough tile sh to keep rods bowed.

After closing the sea bass season in the fall of 2009, threatening to cripple coastal tackle shops and party boat operations, it appears as if the mid-Atlantic sheries council will double the original quota, and that should give shermen a decent May season. e numerous natural and arti cial reefs within an easy run of the Inlet o er ounder, tautog, blue sh, and cobia. Last year, Chris Toner, shing with PropTalk contributor Captain Mark Sampson, busted the Maryland state record cobia by catching one that weighed 72 pounds.

A spring run of blue sh and rock will be available for surf shermen wading the shoreline at Assateague. Soak cut bunker or toss tins and plugs. Later in the year, it’s whiting, and the fall ought to see the rock sh, some bull red drum, and chopper blue sh cruising south along the beach.

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Fish News with Capt. C.D. Dollar

Rock sh Board Considers Upping Coastal Commercial Harvest

Despite signi cant concerns about striped bass, the interstate Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Striped Bass Management Board is weighing whether or not to increase the coastal commercial striped bass harvest.

The decision stunned shing conservation groups such as the New Jersey-based Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) and Coastal Conservation Association (CCA), who cited several pressing concerns facing striper (aka rock sh). Reports presented to ASMFC members detailed the insidious and potentially crippling disease Mycobacteriosis (myco) in the Chesapeake Bay, a downward trend in the Juvenile Abundance Index, and “signi cant and unreported” poaching in the Atlantic’s three-mile “no-take” area called the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The Chesapeake is the main spawning ground for the striped bass stock, and at least two-thirds of the rock sh sampled in recent studies had myco-related lesions.

Only a few weeks after ASMFC’s decision, USCG and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) law enforcement teams, responding to complaints of illegal recreational and commercial striper shing within the EEZ o North Carolina’s Oregon Inlet, busted one commercial vessel with more than 2900 pounds of rock sh aboard. What’s even more disturbing was when the boat was originally boarded in the EEZ, it had 150 stripers onboard. Once docked, o cers discovered only 100 sh. This wanton waste of sh and disregard of the law are of grave concern.

“It’s unnerving that ASMFC would move to grant an increase in commercial landings of striped bass when this EEZ con ict has been going on for two seasons now o the coast of North Carolina,” says RFA’s managing director Jim Hutchinson. “Thankfully, USCG has nally intervened on this gross violation.”

Two members of Maryland’s three-man ASMFC team—O’Connell and watermen Russell Dize (proxy for state legislator Richard Colburn)—voted to support the coastal measure. Bay Foundation scientist Bill Goldsborough was the lone dissenter and has warned the troubling signs are clear. He also suggested, as did O’Connell, that discussion of the disparity between the commercial and recreational coastal catch was needed. Virginia also supported the proposed increase.

Richen Brame, CCA’s Atlantic Fisheries director, adds, “This is not the stance anglers have come to expect from the same commission that helped save striped bass just over three decades ago.” shing with a professional charter captain in either Bay state need not register. Delaware and North Carolina sport shing licenses comply with federal requirements; Maryland and Virginia expect to be in compliance by next year.

Some shermen feel the federal registry is more unnecessary government intrusion, especially those anglers used to shing for free in the Atlantic. By 2011, NOAA will charge each angler of a state out of compliance a $30 fee to register. By revising its sport shing license, Virginia and Maryland will prevent those monies from leaving their respective states.

Photo by C.D. Dollar

Fishermen Required To Register for National Registry

As of January 1, saltwater sport shermen in Virginia and Maryland must register with the federal government to legally wet a line on their own boat and from the beach or a pier when shing the Chesapeake Bay or Atlantic Ocean. The National Saltwater Angler Registry (countmy sh.noaa.gov) is part of the reauthorized Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Act passed by Congress in 2006 and signed into law by President Bush in January 2007. NOAA touts this tiny section of the nation’s overarching sheries law to become the “phonebook” of saltwater shermen that will provide more accurate data on recreational angling. Maryland’s popular “boat license” doesn’t comply with federal requirements, so you must sign up. People

New Federal Fisheries Chief Appointed

After spending 23 years with Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Eric Schwaab took the helm of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in February. A career wildlife professional, Schwaab enters an agency besieged with criticism. The criticisms were supported to a degree in a January 2010 report by the federal Inspector General that stated “we found systemic, nationwide issues adversely a ecting NOAA’s ability to e ectively carry out its mission of regulating the shing industry and contributed signi cantly to a highly-charged regulatory climate and dysfunctional relationship between NOAA and the shing industry.”

If sh stocks are to be rebuilt and shing villages and the sport shing businesses are to survive, common ground must be found, Schwaab says. NOAA administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco, who appointed Schwaab, adds, “Eric will lead NOAA’s e orts to rebuild our sheries and the jobs and livelihoods that depend on them. His immediate priorities include improving outreach and relationships with recreational and commercial shermen and better aligning federal and regional sheries priorities.” “We are encouraged that, for the rst time ever, NMFS will be led by a person with an understanding of recreational angling and the signi cant challenges anglers encounter these days,” says CCA’s Ted Venker.

Assistant Attorney General Joe Gill, who replaced Schwaab as Deputy Secretary, has played a key role in the agency’s ramped up enforcement e orts on poaching and helped write the Conservation Enforcement Act now before Maryland’s General Assembly.

Flounder Regs O ered for Public Comment

Due to an improving ounder stock, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission voted unanimously to consider lowering the size limit for the 2010 season. To view Virginia’s options, visit mrc.state. va.us. To voice your preferences in Maryland, visit sheriespubliccomment@dnr.state.md.us.