Anglers

The public fishing season opens today at Cash Lake at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel. The season runs through Oct. 15 (except for federal holidays.) Anglers with a refuge fishing permit can fish from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. through August, and from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. during September and October. The lake, off Route 197 between Laurel and Bowie, has a fully accessible pier and restroom facilities. Anglers can also fish at the refuge's North Tract entrance, off Route 198, through most of the year.

Maryland's popular and lucrative spring striped bass season will be one week shorter and a bit more complicated for Chesapeake Bay anglers this year to prevent the overfishing of the past two years that raised the ire of regulators. The Department of Natural Resources is expected to receive permission from state lawmakers and the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission for a season that substitutes a "slot" of 28 inches to 35 inches for a minimum-size restriction. The season will begin later, on April 21, which is expected to save 18,000 fish.

The whole atmosphere smells of hair tonic and Aqua Velva, chewin' tobacco and great, heaping levels of testosterone.Burly men in jeans and flannel shirts crowd around booths hawking exotic fishing trips to Alaska, Canada, Montana, each booth featuring a montage of color photos depicting beaming customers triumphantly holding up huge salmon and steelhead against breathtaking backdrops of blue skies, towering fir trees and clear-rushing rivers.But as you wander the aisles at the 15th Annual Bass Expo, Saltwater Fishing and Fly Fishing Show at the Maryland State Fairgrounds and gaze at all the high-tech equipment -- the lightweight composite rods and $30,000 bass boats, the chemically enhanced lures, the rods and tackle strong enough to reel in an oil tanker -- you're left with one overriding thought:Do the fish even have a chance anymore?

The White Marlin Open has been the hot lick in Ocean City during the first week of August for 25 years, and this season the tournament has an added incentive for billfish anglers who release their catch -- an invitation to the Tournament of Champions in Hawaii next March."

This weekend is perhaps the peak of tuna madness in the waters of the Atlantic off Ocean City, as the annual tuna tournament draws more than 500 anglers and 100 boats for three days of competition for the heaviest fish brought to the scales, the greatest total poundage and the most caught and released.But while a brisk breeze snapped the catch or release pennants flying from the outriggers of the sportfishermen tied up at the Ocean City Fishing Center on Friday, there was an air of concern among anglers along the docks.

The spring season for rockfish often peaks early, as anglers get a shot at the last of the spawners leaving Maryland waters of the Chesapeake Bay. This year, with an early opening and cool, wet weather, the fishing has remained steady for nearly two weeks."

Over the past several days, the few paths through the snowy woods had become a dozen or so as handfuls of early season anglers made tracks down to the shoreline of Blackwalnut Creek, just east of Annapolis.The word was out: The white perch were in.Blackwalnut is a shallowbackwater with a channel to the bay wide enough only to squeeze through in a canoe or small jon boat. But late each winter, the perch congregate, and the fishermen come down through the woods as they do throughout the tidewater to creeks and streams.

A place to be on a sunny daySUNLIGHT streaming through the glass roof made the fourth floor of the new courthouse in Annapolis a delightful place to be Wednesday afternoon.As people waiting for hearings or emerging from various courtrooms basked in the toasty warmth reflecting from the floor, Kristin Riggin, spokeswoman for the state's attorney's office, agreed it was a great place to be at that moment."The one problem with it is that when it's sunny it's glaring in here," Riggin said."I always make sure I bring sunglasses with me when I comeover here," she added, patting the shades hooked onto her belt.

Tomorrow at 5 a.m., the entire main stem of the Chesapeake Bay opens for striped bass fishing, and upper-bay anglers can begin to get their piece of the rock without making the run south to waters below Brewerton Channel at the mouth of the Patapsco River.Since the spring rockfish season opened at the end of April, the main stem above Brewerton Channel has been closed to anglers targeting rockfish (striped bass).According to statistics for the last few years from the Department of Natural Resources, and biological trends this season, the first two or three weeks of June could provide excellent fishing for stripers, even though the 28-inch minimum will remain in effect through June 14.Martin L. Gary, who tracks recreational and charterboat catches for DNR's Fisheries Service, said last week that rockfish catches have been sporadic in the areas immediately below Brewerton Channel.

It's enough to make an angler downright giddy -- chilly weather, cool waters, and a bucket of ground fish swill on the Chesapeake Bay.If you're out for striped bass -- rockfish in these parts -- those are the ingredients of a great afternoon.But hurry. The season ends Nov. 30. Fishermen are allowed to keep only two striped bass a day, and the fish must be 18 inches or longer.A pampered way to reel in your catch and also enjoy the bay is to book a trip on a chartered boat or a head boat. The captain does the driving and the mates do all the dirty work, leaving anglers only to find fish, which should be easy.

If Grant Goldbeck ever stands on the podium and hoists the Bassmaster Classic trophy overhead, he'll have sexy underwear to thank. Contrary to what lots of folks think, cruising the country to fish competitively against other like-minded and like-skilled anglers is an expensive proposition. Unless you consistently finish on the podium at the elite level, prize money won't get you and your bass boat from Alabama to Texas. That's something guys like Goldbeck know only too well. The Maryland native will begin his third season this week fishing the Bassmaster Elite Series, an eight-event competition that every year provides a pipeline to the Classic.

SHREVEPORT, La. - Kim Bain-Moore is making history as the first woman to compete in the Bassmaster Classic, but many of the 50 male anglers she is fishing against aren't happy about it. They insist it's nothing personal against the 28-year-old Australian native, just that she doesn't deserve a shot at the $500,000 first prize and the endorsements that come with a Classic victory. The Classic, which is today through Sunday on the Red River, includes the top 37 anglers from the Bassmaster Elite Series, a grueling 11-tournament circuit.

By next spring, anglers will likely cast their lines into the Susquehanna River from a $4 million fishing wharf now under construction near Conowingo Dam. Exelon Power, the utility company that operates the Conowingo Hydroelectric Station on the river, has launched construction of an expansive walkway with wide steps leading to the beach at the base of the dam. The area has long been a favorite fishing spot, especially when the shad run in the spring....

You get what you pay for. For nearly 30 years, when it came to keeping track of our fish populations and figuring out whether we were catching too many, that old chestnut was true. The method used to count fish, the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey, essentially used two data-gathering tools: waiting around marinas until anglers returned from a day on the water and opening phonebooks and making random calls, hoping that at least some of the folks at the other end were of the fish-catching variety.

With a flip and a splash, 21 robust striped bass with neon-green tags - one worth $15,000 - were released just off Annapolis yesterday to kick off the richest portion of the state's summer fishing contest. The fish in the spotlight, nicknamed "Diamond Jim," will net an angler $10,000 cash and a $5,000 diamond if caught by midnight on June 30. Anyone who lands one of the 20 "impostors" will win a $500 gift certificate to Boater's World. No one has caught "Diamond Jim" in the previous three years of the Maryland Fishing Challenge, but anglers have won Toyota pickup trucks, boats and trailers, tackle and gift certificates.

Fact: All of Maryland's lakes are manmade. Opinion: When it comes to fishing, so what? The fish don't care. Many of Maryland's watering holes, in fact, are just that, part of the public drinking-water supply, so the water runs deep and clear (weather permitting) from Loch Raven in Baltimore County to Sykesville's Piney Run to Deep Creek Lake out west. Not all reservoirs roll out the welcome mat for anglers. Some have steep banks, no parking or long walks from the road to the shoreline.

If last week's meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission was Howard King's final performance, the Maryland fisheries chief deserves a curtain call and Maryland anglers should be on their feet applauding. It wasn't a flashy show, filled with theatrics and soliloquies. But that's not King's style; results are. What Maryland got is the right to regulate the 2008 spring striped bass season without the constraints of a phony cap, the same right long enjoyed by the other East Coast states.

As the drawing of prize winners in the state's "Diamond Jim" fishing contest teetered on the brink of meltdown yesterday, with Gov. Martin O'Malley as the beleaguered game show host, one could only wonder: Is Maryland really ready to run slot machines? The use of a Maryland Lottery pingpong ball device to choose the five finalists was too clever by half. With more than 200 anglers and family members watching from a parking lot at Sandy Point State Park, the organizers lost track of the number of balls in the hopper and how they related to choosing the finalists.

One evening back when there was still a chill in the air, Howard King, Maryland's fisheries director, told a gathering of anglers and guides that he thought he could get them a two-week spring striped bass season on Susquehanna Flats. "Did you hear that?" Capt. Mike Benjamin said afterward, a grin on his face. "I hope Howard's right, but I don't know if he can convince those guys." "Those guys," the members of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, have been a tough audience for Maryland to win over on matters of striped bass.

The public fishing season opens today at Cash Lake at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel. The season runs through Oct. 15 (except for federal holidays.) Anglers with a refuge fishing permit can fish from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. through August, and from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. during September and October. The lake, off Route 197 between Laurel and Bowie, has a fully accessible pier and restroom facilities. Anglers can also fish at the refuge's North Tract entrance, off Route 198, through most of the year.