Regulars (Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle)

Article - Dennis Doyle; , Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 7/15/10

Never, Ever, Leave Fish to Find Fish

Forgetting that maxim, this dummy went home hungry

Fish are Biting Rockfish are getting even more finicky in the heat and have developed an almost exclusive preference for spot. Unfortunately, those spot have become elusive especially in the sizes best for live-lining, five to six inches. If you can find them, you’ll get your stripers. Croaker are roaming about in good numbers and ever-increasing sizes and taking shrimp and bloodworms. Perch have now begun to swarm the shallows, and big ones can be found there...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 7/15/10

Never, Ever, Leave Fish to Find Fish

Forgetting that maxim, this dummy went home hungry

It had been a simple plan: Start out before dawn; catch some small Norfolk spot for live-lining; locate a pod of rockfish; catch two keepers; get off the water before the temps hit 100. I’d done it before, and that formula had been a sure route to success. However, all the parts had to cooperate to make my plan work. The before-dawn part was easily accomplished, though the gods know I don’t care for getting up in the dark. But after I had launched and began my bait search, I...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 7/8/10

Making the Grade

Rod maker George Pavlik had agonized over this rod —
the perfect stick for casting to white perch

My skiff had drifted a good distance from the cove’s rip-rapped edge by the time I glimpsed the slight flash. It was the gold/green hue of a big white perch, deep and near the rocks. Arcing my spinner bait out over the growing distance, I got it close to the mark. - I gave the lure just a second or two to get down, then started to crank. The fish must have hit it on the drop, because I was immediately solid. It felt like a good one. Playing it gently, I kept a good bend in...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 6/24/10

Riding the Roller Coaster

Highs and lows on the trotline

The initial run on our trotline proved a surprising success. The first four baits had jumbo crabs hanging on them, and my netter, Harrison, quickly had them rattling in our collection basket. After that fortunate start, they continued to come, and there was scarcely need to measure any of them. All were prime Jimmies. My son and I were ecstatic. This was going to prove an easy trip. We would quickly discover that we were wrong again. Our trip had nearly been a casualty from the...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 6/17/10

Perch in a Poke

An old salt teaches this old dog a new lesson

It felt like a good fish right from the start. Lifting my rod tip at the strike, I felt solid resistance, then a headshake. Then the perch shot out from deep under the dock where I had hooked it. On its way out, the crafty devil also cornered at the nearest barnacle-encrusted piling and cut the line. I shook my head and reached for another spinner bait. This wasn’t the first big white perch to have done me dirt that morning. A number of whities finning in our five-gallon...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 6/10/10

Pinched

Sometimes the crab catches you

The sudden pain was excruciating. The Jimmie I was attempting to free from my net was not particularly large, but it had closed its pincer firmly across the tip of my middle finger and was bearing down with unbelievable pressure. Just a moment’s inattention, and I’d been caught like the rankest amateur crabber. It hurt like hell. I yelled out in agony. My right hand held the crab net that had captured the rascal, and I couldn’t let it go without adding even more...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 6/3/10

Let Summer Begin

I’ve caught and eaten my first feast of crabs

It started out as a tip from a friend. Fooling with his crab line in a distant, shallow cove, he had discovered a bumper load of crabs weeks earlier than he had ever encountered anywhere else on the Chesapeake. I wanted in on that. Experience with chasing the delectable Chesapeake blue crab had convinced me that catching enough for a good feast was probably not going to happen until mid-June. Before then, it always seemed that our state’s hallowed crustaceans had risen from their...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 5/27/10

A Box Full of Rocks

So I was wrong about the Jonah

The Bay was calm, the sun was shining and we were relaxed. It was early afternoon and Mike E. and I, anchored in 35 feet of water, had six light-tackle rods rigged with cut, fresh menhaden and set out in rod holders. The closest fishing boat to us was about a mile away. The slick from a block of ground menhaden, submerged in a net bag astern, had spread out well behind us, and Mike was occasionally adding to it a few chunks of fresh menhaden as he prepared additional baits. Usually...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 5/20/10

The Bay's Other Great Filter

Scooping up suspended plant matter and algae, a typical menhaden filters seven gallons of water a minute, dwarfing even the oyster

Also called pogy, mossbunker, fatback, bugmouth and about 25 other names, they are all the same creature, menhaden, and the most important fish that swims in our Chesapeake. The fish with many names is also an essential resident along the Atlantic seaboard because it is a main ecological building block for our entire marine food web. A schooling, silvery fish about 15 inches long with an enormous mouth and weighing a pound or so, it is bony, smelly and poor tasting. But everything...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 5/6/10

Get Ready to Catch Crabs

Here’s how

This year will be the best season in over a decade for Chesapeake Bay crabbers. The Department of Natural Resources estimates that the blue crab population is up 60 percent, the highest number since 1997. If you want to get a share of this delicious Chesapeake bounty, now is the time to start preparations and acquire the necessary gear. Assuming that you have even the most modest of boats (even a canoe or kayak will do), the best method to employ, especially if you’re just starting...