Stripers

A s meetings go, Monday night's open house about proposed regulations to protect striped bass was a head scratcher. Members of the group with "conservation" in its name were saying very unconservationlike things. So were other recreational anglers. Essentially, they want to continue to harass, unencumbered by rules, egg-laden female striped bass as they swim to their spawning grounds in the upper Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries in March and April. Harass is a harsh word, I know.

Alexandria, Va. — Sitting in a ballroom with not a hint of sunlight slipping through the thick curtains as biologists and bureaucrats chatter endlessly about fecundity and fish mortality makes it hard to remember the connection between science and fish. Then someone e-mails a photo to you and it all makes sense and you want to run to the front of the room hollering: "Do something. Do it now." It's time to make things right for the fish and ensure that kids who build reef balls for the Chesapeake Bay today will have something tugging at their lines someday that will make them grin and make their hearts pound and produce a snapshot they'll cherish until they're old. Something like the feeling Kevin Howell had last weekend.

The Belinda Gail III had made its way south for 45 minutes or so from Deale, and Capt. Jerry Lastfogel had set out an array of small spoons, which were catching rockfish regularly.As the stripers came aboard and were released, Pete Jensen looked them over and smiled or grunted as the anglers aboard commented on the healthy appearance and strength of the 12- to 14-inch fish."Yes, they do look good, don't they," said Jensen, chief of tidewater fisheries for the Department of Natural Resources.

Sitting in a ballroom with not a hint of sunlight slipping through the thick curtains as biologists and bureaucrats chatter endlessly about fecundity and fish mortality makes it hard to remember the connection between science and fish. Then someone e-mails a photo to you and it all makes sense and you want to run to the front of the room hollering: "Do something. Do it now." It's time to make things right for the fish and ensure that kids who build reef balls for the Chesapeake Bay today will have something tugging at their lines someday that will make them grin and make their hearts pound and produce a snapshot they'll cherish until they're old. Something like the feeling Kevin Howell had last weekend.

Jerry Sauter slid his rig off the trailer at Liberty Reservoir on Thursday, as he has done innumerable times over the past 30 years, although he admitted it was one of the coldest mornings he has gone to fish the 3,100-acre impoundment between Baltimore and Carroll counties."

In the four days out the first week of the trophy rockfish season, at least one trophy fish had been hooked per day, and three trophies had been caught and released -- including a 49-incher taken on a white spoon at the south side of the mouth of Eastern Bay.But early last week the fishing slowed, for me at least.The channel edges off Poplar Island and Bloody Point did not yield a keeper during short trips Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Frankly, I began to think I might not catch another fish above the 36-inch minimum.

Wouldn't it have been easier in our dating days if someone had given us a map of where the opposite sex hung out? No wasted gasoline. No massive phone bills. No sitting at crummy parties, waiting for "him" or "her." Well, when it comes to where the girls are - striped bass, that is - the Department of Natural Resources has a map. Called (rather dryly if you ask me) the "Upper Bay Spawning Stock Biomass Survey Sampling Grid," it shows where biologists found the largest concentrations of female stripers from 1990 to 1999.

Those big ole striped bass that haunt our reservoirs are smarter than you might think. When the Maryland Department of Natural Resources stocks trout off boat ramps, the stripers simply wait at ramp's end for dinner to plop in. Disoriented trout get gobbled up in shallow water before horrified DNR biologists can say "lemon butter sauce."But the biologists are smarter than the fish they manage. Last week they were giving boat rides to trout in the city's Prettyboy Reservoir, floating right by schools of hungry stripers to deliver trout to the relative safety of deeper water.

MARTHA'S VINEYARD, Mass. - The clerk behind the counter at Capt. Porky's Bait and Tackle spends a lot of time assembling the colorful rods and reels that parents buy and kids dangle off the nearby Edgartown wharf. You see the fruits of her labors everywhere. After a couple of days on this island, you get used to seeing families of fishermen - dads, moms and young ones - walking downtown streets with fishing rods in one hand and tackle boxes in the other. No doubt about it, this island is an angler's paradise.

Surf anglers recently lined the beaches, hoping for some fishing action to spice up their fall.Although the surf was rough and the sinkers came bouncing back with the waves, anglers caught bluefish up to 2 pounds. They weren't large, but they were the first run of blues we have seen in the surf.Raymond Layton Jr. had a catch worth noting on Assateague Island at crossing No. 11. He landed a 28 1/2 -pound red drum on a kingfish head.After he had hooked the kingfish, something grabbed the line and ate the lower half of the fish.

A s meetings go, Monday night's open house about proposed regulations to protect striped bass was a head scratcher. Members of the group with "conservation" in its name were saying very unconservationlike things. So were other recreational anglers. Essentially, they want to continue to harass, unencumbered by rules, egg-laden female striped bass as they swim to their spawning grounds in the upper Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries in March and April. Harass is a harsh word, I know.

There's truth. And then there's Internet truth. There are others, such as the self-evident truths, but we'll focus on the one that has watermen, recreational anglers and charter boat captains headed for a showdown that no doubt will be refereed by Department of Natural Resources fisheries biologists. Unfortunately, even when interpreted by the well-intentioned, Internet truth can often be just one facet of the big picture. A snapshot. A drive-by glimpse. The proverbial elephant as envisioned by a group of blind men, who draw their conclusions after touching just one part of the beast.

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.

MARTHA'S VINEYARD, MASS. / / We were bouncing down the beach in a big four-wheel-drive pickup, going fishing, when Cooper Gilkes, one of the most respected guides on Martha's Vineyard, stopped to talk to a ranger. "You should have been here this morning," the ranger said. "Six o'clock this morning, it was unbelievable." That is, there were striped bass everywhere. Now, it appeared, they were somewhere else. "Don't tell me that," Gilkes said. "I don't want to hear that." I was riding shotgun, and I didn't want to hear it either.

Toni Quigley caught my fish. After looking at the photo below this column, I'm betting she caught your fish, too. Heck, there's enough fish there for an entire Boy Scout troop. Sadly for us, however, Quigley is the angler of record. The Pasadena woman was trolling off Chesapeake Beach last Tuesday with her husband, Steve, aboard Backfin. They bought their boat three years ago and named it in honor of their other passion, crabbing. Steve has been fishing for 20 years; Toni, since they got the boat.

Piney Run -- Some largemouth bass caught on live minnows and plastics near hydrilla; cut baits and chicken livers are attracting catfish; and striped bass are hooking on chicken livers. Prettyboy Reservoir -- "Now is the time to catch a trophy largemouth or smallmouth bass," Joe Butta said, citing larger fish moving into staging areas to feed for the winter. Plastics, jigs and crankbaits work. Trolling spinners and night crawlers work for white perch. Gunpowder River -- Cool, clean water is flowing faster than 180 cubic feet per second, according to the Backwater Angler online report, combining with fewer anglers to increase chances of catching fish.

ANNAPOLIS -- It is a short run from Mill Creek on the west side of Whitehall Bay to the Bay Bridge, just enough time for Capt. Ed Darwin to sip his way through a cup of coffee and sort out the day ahead.After several days of wet, windy weather, Wednesday held promise. The breeze was almost nonexistent, the cloud cover thinning and the tide 2 1/4 hours from being low at Sandy Point."We have one rule aboard the Becky D," said Darwin, who spent a career teaching shop in the Baltimore City school system before retiring and turning his avocation into a full-time profession.

For a short time last October, rockfish again captured the fancy of Maryland fishermen. In the time since, there has been much ado about a recreational season for stripers this year. It would be split between dates in May and October or November.A fall recreational fishery is virtually certain. What will transpire this spring, however, is questionable.Under the Maryland management plan, which has been submitted to and approved by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, the spring season must be held between May 1 and May 31 -- and fishing efforts must be limited to minimal catches of trophy-size stripers.