Eastern Bay

Maryland opens an experimental hunting season for green-winged or blue-winged teal in areas of the state east of I-95 tomorrow. The season, which has a four-duck daily limit, runs through Sept. 22, excluding Sunday hunting.The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offered the special season to states in which 80 percent of the teal harvest comes from mid-continent nesting areas. The season dates are in addition to the normal duck seasons that open in October.Hunting for all other waterfowl is illegal during the September teal season, except for resident Canada geese.

If you like to hunt and fish, you simply have to love this time of the year. Take Labor Day weekend, for example.On Saturday, Wayne Albaugh and I finally got this year's dove season off to a running start with a super hunt near Union Bridge in western Carroll County.We did our pre-hunt homework and arranged to hunt the only chopped cornfield in the area. The place drew doves like a magnet, and we had our limits within two hours.Albaugh and I are equally enthusiastic about dove hunting, and we manage to get in at least one shoot a week through this early season.

The early fishing seasons for rockfish closed Sunday on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, but fishermen who frequent the tidewater needn't pack it in until the fall season opens Aug. 15 because there still are excellent angling opportunities.Among the best fishing news for bay anglers is an influx of sea trout over the past several days, including large numbers over 20 inches in length."We had expected to see good numbers of weakfish [sea trout] to 20 inches this summer," said DNR Fisheries Service biologist Martin L. Gary.

On Kent Island in Queen Anne's County, the local folks have a term for the sweltering humidity. The word is close, as in too close for comfort. When the thermometer and the humidity both hit 95, when your skin is clammy and your brow is damp, that's when you've reached close.On the southern end of Kent Island, there's a place for summer delights, for crabbing and picnicking -- a place for enjoying the close weather. Off the beaten path of Route 50 East, south on Route 8, this place is the Romancoke Pier on the Eastern Bay.At dawn, before the sun heats the wooden planks, caretaker Jean Graham pulls open the chain-link fence surrounding the park that leads to the pier.

Jennings Randolph Reservoir in Garrett County is perhaps best known in the rest of the state for the innovative net pens at the base of the dam that produce tremendous trout. But the impoundment on the North Branch of the Potomac River also produces decent bass fishing and an occasional monster walleye.On May 16, John McCarley of Union Bridge was fishing a crawfish-colored crankbait for smallmouth bass on the reservoir upstream from Luke, when he had a walleye encounter of the state-record kind.

Bowhunting season for deer opened this week in Maryland and with it the state's new management plan went into effect, including larger bag limits and a new bonus deer stamp program.Under the new plan, the state has been separated into four regions, each of which has its own bag limit. Under the previous management plan, one bag limit applied statewide. Now hunters will be allowed to hunt any or all four regions and take a limit of deer in each."During our statewide deer planning process, Maryland citizens told us that deer should be managed in consideration of Maryland's distinct habitats and landscapes, and the diverse public interests that exist across the state," said John R. Griffin, secretary of the Department of Natural Resources.

Denny Brauer, a professional bass fisherman from Camdenton, Mo., has won plenty of big tournaments over the past 18 years, and last weekend he was a big winner again, even though he failed to make the cut in the $1 million Forrest Wood Open in Hartford, Conn.Brauer finished 12th in a field of 75 pros. But in the process he won the Wal-Mart FLW Tour Angler of the Year title and a position on a special-edition Wheaties box.Brauer, 49, will be the first pro angler featured on the cereal box, which, through the years, has showcased professional and Olympic stars.

Fishing is fishing right now.We're riding on a seam between spring and summer, and action on the bay is different from one day to thenext.Bluefish, for example, are neither here nor there. Saturday, large schools of the 1- to 5-pound snappers moved north of what used to be buoy 54 in the Point No Point area and were headed in our direction. A nasty afternoon thunderstorm moved through the area, overturning small boats and causing havoc, and by Sunday, the bluefish had retreated several miles south, below the Target Ship.

A week's worth of news about the striped bass poaching operation around Kent Island that netted 10 tons of fish generated a lot of questions from readers that deadlines simply prevented me from answering individually. The investigation has just begun, so there's a lot state officials don't know or won't talk about yet. Keep in mind that the last striped bass poaching sting involved state and federal game officers and took more than five years to sort through. This one doesn't appear to be as organized or complex, but building a case against even a few poachers takes time.

The locations Piney Run: Consider a weekend trip to Piney Run Park, where the knowledgeable guys at Clyde's Sports Shop say they've heard of shore anglers catching bass of up to 5 pounds. Park rangers say stripers are appearing in the evenings, with one catch hitting almost 19 pounds. Plenty of pumpkinseeds and bluegills are hanging out in the weed beds. Use live bait and plastic worms and lizards for the bass, worms for the panfish, and small jigs and minnows for the crappies. Morgan Run: The water is dirty from all the heavy rain but "should be fishable by the weekend - fishable but not a lot of fun," says Marshall White at Angler's Hollow in Westminster.