Fish

The winner of the 39th annual White Marlin Open in Ocean City is set to receive an estimated prize of $1.4 million after reeling in the only white marlin to qualify in the five-day tournament. William "Bill" Woody, of Pasadena, caught the 72-pound white marlin last Wednesday aboard the Blew Bayou. The payout is expected to be $1,429,092, slightly higher than the payout of $1,394,480.50 made in 2007 for an 83-pound white marlin. Woody caught the only white marlin that met the minimum requirements of measuring at least 67 inches and weighing at least 70 pounds.

Tennis Fish, Haas, Querrey, Dolgopolov in D.C. semis Top-seeded Mardy Fish defeated Xavier Malisse , 6-3, 6-4, in the quarterfinals of the ATP Citi Open Friday in Washington and will play fourth-seeded Tommy Haas , who beat Tobias Kamke , 6-1, 6-2. Eighth-seeded Sam Querrey topped third-seeded Kevin Anderson , 6-4, 6-4, and will face second-seeded Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine, a 7-6, 6-4 winner over James Blake . World TeamTennis: Bobby...

Fishing has always been big in Ocean City. In its simplest form, it is the ultimate way to do something without really doing anything. There are also some pretty skilled anglers in O.C., like those joining next week's annual White Marlin Open (Aug. 6-10), who go far offshore to catch marlins and sharks. But if you're just a casual visitor looking for a good way to relax in the afternoon, here are some tips covering the basics of bayside fishing in Ocean City. Get a fishing license.

A new plan calls for increasing public access to the Chesapeake Bay by adding more than 300 new spots along the shore where people can fish, swim, put a boat in the water or just enjoy the view. The draft " watershed public access plan " released late last week by the National Park Service lays out a blueprint for boosting by more than 25 percent the number of sites where the public can get to the bay and its tributaries.  That was one of the goals in a 2010 bay restoration strategy developed by the Obama administration.

When Robert Marbury was 19 years old, he necked with Ricki Lake on camera. At age 29, he spent a year sailing in Indonesia, where he says his ship was attacked by pirates. Four years later, he was one of the three co-founders of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists. At age 34, one of his photographs of stuffed animals tied to car grilles was featured in The New York Times - the first of several articles in that august publication in which Marbury has been quoted. And this coming weekend, the 41-year-old Marbury will preside over an installation at Artscape that includes a 7-foot tall Bigfoot swathed in fake fur, as well as a pond from which visitors can fish for canned soda and beer.

Fishing has long been considered a lifetime sport that can be shared and enjoyed by families and different generations. Wednesday, the Annapolis chapter of the Maryland Saltwater Sportfishermen's Association will hold its annual fishing trips to Chesapeake Beach and Solomons Island and allow some of those families to enjoy the sport together. The event is sold out, as it usually is, and will host 30 people, consisting of chapter members and some of their children and grandchildren.

Not long after boarding a boat with an Annapolis police officer this week, DeSean Turner, 11, boasted that he would catch at least 40 fish, but he refused to touch the worms without using needle-nose pliers. The other boy on the boat, 13-year-old Jordan Bowdry, set a goal to touch neither a wiggly worm nor a flopping fish the entire day. To Sgt. Kevin Krauss, they were the ideal pair of fishing companions: boys picked from Annapolis neighborhoods where an officer's presence usually means trouble.

Perched atop a weathered navigational marker near Rocky Point in Back River, the osprey shifted nervously, screeched and flew off as a boat full of people approached. With the raptor circling overhead, Rebecca Lazarus climbed onto the marker and peered into its nest, a tangled heap of tree branches and scraps of plastic. "She's got one chick in here," called out Lazarus, a doctoral student at the University of Maryland, College Park. The osprey had laid two eggs, but only one hatched.

Richard N. Novotny Sr., former executive director of the Maryland Saltwater Sportfishing Association who also lobbied on behalf of state recreational fishermen, died Sunday of kidney failure at Ivy Hall Geriatric & Rehabilitation Center in Middle River. The longtime Essex resident was 67. "He was highly regarded, and when Rich was in a leadership role, he helped form a strong relationship between [the Department of Natural Resources] and the Maryland Saltwater Sportfishing Association.

Regarding Congress' investigation of the Justice Department's Operation Fast and Furious, how can anyone possibly believe this is simply a "partisan gotcha-as-usual" political ploy ("Faster and more furiously," June 22). This is not about the lies of a spoiled baseball player accused of using steroids. It's about an atrociously ill-conceived government gun-running operation that resulted in the deaths of two federal agents and perhaps hundreds of Mexican citizens. "Fast and Furious" is a prime example of government stupidity in action, and the American people deserve to know the truth about why and how this happened.