The fatal disease attacks the brains and nervous systems of captive and wild deer, moose and elk, working much the way "mad cow disease" does. It has been detected in animals in 15 states and two Canadian provinces. The closest infected animals were detected in a West Virginia county that abuts Maryland, first in 2005 and again this year.
While there is there is no evidence that CWD poses a risk for humans, Maryland biologists sample the brain stems of hundreds of deer each year.
"The longer we can hold it off, the more we can learn about the disease," Eyler said.
Just after the Prebles left, Joisy showed up with his second big buck from the National Agricultural Center in Beltsville.
"It was a real tough shot," hunting buddy and brother-in-law Kevin Johannes confided. "The buck walked right under him."
Joisy, an accomplished hunter who fills the freezers of friends and family, said he was so busy focusing on the horizon he failed to notice the large mass under his stand. It was only the crunch of leaves beneath hooves that broke the spell.
Unlike Preble, Joisy and Johannes weren't resting on their laurels.
"We're going to get something to eat and go back out," said Johannes. "How often do you get days this nice?"
Rock (Hall) Lobster
When you fish crab pots in the summer and net in the winter year in and year out, it stands to reason that there are very few surprises left in the Chesapeake Bay.
But a surprise is just what Capt. Bobby Coleman and mate Gerald Jacquette got Nov. 14, when they checked a pot at Swan Point just off Rock Hall. There, in among the crabs, was a visitor from up north, a lobster.
DNR fisheries biologist Marty Gary said he had never heard of a lobster in the bay.
Jack Cover, general curator of the National Aquarium, said that while high-salinity ocean critters sometimes venture up the brackish bay, a more likely scenario is that a live lobster from a grocery store was released by a "well-meaning animal advocate."
Although clearly out of its element, the "bug," about a pound and a half, was lively. So were the jokes that followed.
"I said to Gerald, 'Did you take the rubber bands off the claws before you showed it around?" said Sandra Coleman, the captain's wife. "I said, 'Maybe if we run out of crabs, we can lobster.' "
If the lobster did find its own way north, it had to perform a shell game, scuttling past the veteran watermen of Crisfield to arrive at Rock Hall, across the bay from the mouth of the Patapsco River,
"Only the lobster can tell the true story of how it ended up in Rock Hall," Cover said.
But that's one lobster tale that won't be told. Coleman and Jacquette steamed the crustacean and ate it.
