Anglers

Pardon Dee Tochterman if she doesn't have time for more than a quick hello. She has worms to wash. Thousands of them. Every day from spring to late fall, Tochterman is the head worm wrangler at T.G. Tochterman & Sons, the 94-year-old tackle shop on Eastern Avenue. Her specialty is bloodworms, the nasty critters from the mud flats of Maine and Canada that squirt blood and bite. Anglers love them. But the fish of the Chesapeake Bay — stripers, spot and croaker — love them even more.

Now I know how those White House party crashers felt. I received an e-mail Wednesday addressed to "Dear Chesapeake Bay colleague" inviting me to listen in on a "special briefing for the watermen and recreational fishing communities on a new federal strategy for protecting and restoring the Chesapeake Bay watershed." Earlier in the day, the Obama administration announced a "we really mean it this time" plan to restore the bay that involves tons of federal tough love and forces the six states in the watershed to break a sweat on enacting and enforcing stricter pollution and development laws.

Everyone who steps into the great outdoors and uses it in some way — hunters and hikers, campers and canoeists, bass anglers and those of us who fish for trout — are supposed to know the rules: Leave a place as you found it, take your trash with you, get involved in stewardship in some way so your children and grandchildren can experience the same pleasures of the natural world some day. There are a few other rules, borrowed from...

Protecting menhaden, the small fish that nourishes striped bass and other species, moved a bit closer to reality Wednesday when East Coast fisheries managers unanimously agreed to review the science that forms the foundation of regulations. Recreational anglers and conservation groups applauded the vote by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to prepare more conservative benchmarks for menhaden that would lead to greater abundance. They had been frustrated by a nine-year process that became mired in interstate politics and intense lobbying by commercial interests.

Tom Gittins of York, Pa., writes: When I went on the Web site for the National Saltwater Angler Registry and looked at the FAQs section, I encountered something that left me a little puzzled. The answer to Question 10 says the fee for 2011 (in the event states don't pass their own angler registry or license program) will be based on the total amount of money it takes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to run the registry divided by the anticipated number of people registering.

For more than 56,000 Maryland anglers, there's nothing so sweet or more of a harbinger of spring than the growl of the big trucks filled with trout. In good weather and bad, state fisheries tank trucks load up with thousands of trout raised at hatcheries and drop them off in waterways from Western Maryland to the Eastern Shore: iridescent speckled rainbows; dusky, glistening brown trout; and a sunflower-yellow variety that makes the surrounding water glitter. "I left with 2,200 [fish]

State officials want to implement a comprehensive $15 saltwater fishing license starting next year to bring Maryland into compliance with federal law and keep revenue here that otherwise would be funneled to Washington. The license proposal, which is expected to be introduced in the General Assembly as early as today, would end free fishing for anglers in the Atlantic Ocean and in the coastal bays behind Ocean City. In addition, the bill would increase the length of short-term licenses from five to seven days; establish a free registry for anglers fishing from pleasure boats, waterfront property owners and their immediate family fishing from their property and individuals fishing in a free fishing area; create reciprocal fees for nonresident tidal licenses; and authorize a commercial pier fishing license.

State officials want to implement a comprehensive $15 saltwater fishing license starting next year to bring Maryland into compliance with federal law and keep revenue here that otherwise would be funneled to Washington. The license proposal, which is expected to be introduced in General Assembly as early as Friday, would end free fishing for anglers on the Atlantic Ocean and on the coastal bays behind Ocean City. In addition, the bill would: increase the length of short-term licenses from five to seven days; establish a free registry for anglers fishing from pleasure boats, waterfront property owners and their immediate family fishing from their property and individuals fishing in a free fishing area; create reciprocal fees for non-resident tidal licenses; and authorize a commercial pier fishing license.

Armed with an ancient stopwatch and a brand-new hangover that made the glowing numbers on the digital clock seem as piercing as the searchlights at Alcatraz, I picked up the telephone at 4 a.m. New Year's Day and dialed my way into legality. By 4:09, I was a federally registered angler, a process that proved to be less painful than the throbbing inside my brainpan. All it took was remembering who I was, where I lived, when I was born, my phone number and the three states where I hope to fish this year.