still looking for stripers

was rough on saturday as we headed to smith point and up into sunnybank. turned out to be more of a boat ride than a fishing excursion.

rw sports

got some fishing supplies at rw sports in callao before heading out on the river.

snakehead caught in potomac river

this video was uploaded to youtube wednesday by jetblackobsidian who apparently caught this nasty snakehead while kayak fishing on the potomac river north of mount vernon on monday. whoa!

dolphin pod playing in west river

last year about this time the wife and i spotted bottlenose dolphins in the potomac river as we headed into cod creek. last weekend everybody saw them up in the west river near gainesville. if you see some, remember: dolphins are covered by the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act, and should be enjoyed from a distance. great photo by kent roberts.

epic chesapeake

this is a great video loaded to youtube by howlinwind1 with meteorologist jay titlow's interview on the weather channel's epic conditions episode featuring sailing on the chesapeake bay. the video is awesome, but the best part is i spotted my brother in law, billy, working! (at about minute 2:50)

how do you cook a carp?

this 260-pound world record carp was caught in thailand. he tried to make his escape by slapping the fishermen with its tail! now that's a fish!

zodiac

towed the zodiac down to the bay: great little boat for catching spot or croakers up in the creeks. ripped the skeg off on a sandbar or something: it's at jett's marina for repair.

chesapeake bay blue crab feast

the crabs should be heavier by now, so i decided to post this video as an aid to all you folks having out of towners for a visit: it makes that crab feast so much easier. crack a pbr and let it roll!

prime seafood

if i didnt post these things in the middle of the night, i might have noticed that this is a stingray, not a cownose ray as shown above. thanks to captain jim at prime seafood for the correction! jim supplies sustainable seafood to the best chefs around, although no rays of any sort yet. in fact 70 of the top 100 restaurants in washington dc get their deep sea delectables from prime seafood: i do. you should, too.

cownose rays in the chesapeake bay

last weekend i saw a few cownose rays in cod creek thrashing about: probably eating oysters on the bar i found. their barbed tails are poisenous, so i'll be keeping the dog out of the water during feeding time. here is a photo of one caught recently and uploaded yesterday by jwerry. i wonder if they ate it?

the rescue of poplar island

earlier this month defenders of wildlife volunteer corps and the national aquarium teamed up to try to rescue poplar island from destruction caused by the global warming-induced sea level rise in the chesapeake bay. the army corp of engineers is heading up the project, scheduled to be completed in 2027.

that's a lot of mud!

chesapeake bay blue crabs

blue crabs in the chesapeake bay started molting the last week of may, and they told me at captain faunce's memorial day would be the last weekend for good hard crabs for three weeks or so: they were right, for sure. the crabs have not been really worth picking, apparently due to the recent full moon shed. they should be gaining weight soon, though. razor clams have been the most successful bait of late, followed by chicken necks, according to this week's dnr's fishing report.

zodiac

no fishing this weekend...company picnic and day trip to rehobeth to pick up my brother's 12-foot zodiac. so cool for cruising the shallow waters off of the river for spot: future bait for that big rock!

1963 chevrolet corvette boat

i knew the corvette was named for the stingray, but i didnt know it was also named after "the corvette: a small, manoeuverable, lightly armed warship, originally smaller than a frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft". swedish designer Bo Zolland came up with this new winged boat based on a classic corvette from the 60's. it can be ordered with a 496 HP or 502 HP Mercruisers, an LS-9 marine or a Volvo Penta Diesel with up to 550 HP. could you pull it with a matching '63 vette?

fish in maryland without a license

this saturday is one of four free fishing days in maryland waters: no license required! so all you wanna be anglers: get your gear together and go!

red tide?

i saw these algal blooms at the end of my creek. i didnt realize how harmful they are to humans, dogs and especially shellfish til i saw articles on the dnr's website about them. there are also interactive maps monitoring water quality throughout the bay region.

spring striper tagging final

after reporting a couple of weeks ago about an abandoned gill net in the choptank river, i was surprised to see this video posted today by dnr about how they are using these gill nets to tag spring rock fish. they give a lot of info on the proper use of the controversial net-type, plus talk about their findings. interesting!

off-shore fishing

headed to rehobeth with john for some off-shore fishing with dennis on his sweet parker.

clean the bay day

help clean virginia's waterways this saturday june 6, 2009. last year 7,020 volunteers removed 120 tons of debris from 434 miles of waterways. go to the chesapeake bay foundations site to volunteer. half of Virginia rivers and streams drain into Chesapeake Bay rivers, and two-thirds of the state's population lives within the Bay watershed.