Articles by Dennis Doyle

The Coming Season Is Now

Day by day, new fish come our way

Our new angling year on the Tidewater is rich with possibilities. But if you don’t plan to take advantage of what’s happening now, some good times may slip past. A number of particularly great fisheries have already started. The yellow perch spring run, always the first to grace our calendar, is in full blossom. These beautiful and tasty rascals can be found in many Bay tributary headwaters. With a minimum size of nine inches and a limit of 10 fish a day, they...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle; 3/17/11

Knotty Matters

If you want to catch fish, you’d better know how to tie a fisherman’s knot

One simple thing an angler can do to help catch more big fish is learn to tie the right knot correctly. In a life of fishing and after working in a sports store for a good number of years and listening to countless tales of big fish broken off, I’ve learned many anglers aren’t sure which knot to tie or how to tie it. The weakest link in the connection between fish and fisherman is the knot. Common household and sailing knots such as the square knot, granny knot,...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle; 3/10/11

A Grass Roots Petition to Ban Gill Nets

With Chesapeake Bay the striped bass nursery of the Atlantic, our actions have an impact far beyond Maryland shores

Jerome Collier of Severna Park has initiated an online petition (http://www.petitiononline.com/yrrejmaj) to halt the use of gill nets. Collier says his goal is not to stop commercial fishing but to urge Maryland Department of Natural Resources to shift this rockfish allocation to a more manageable method of harvesting. Gill nets have been prone to abuse, and hence outlawed, almost everywhere they have been used commercially. One remarkable thing about this petition, other...

Article - News; by Dennis Doyle; 3/3/11

New Year's Day

Finally, out of the cabin and onto the water

We had been fishing about two hours for yellow perch without a bite. Still, we were happy as clams. Mike E., poised in the front of my skiff, was not even upset the third time he fouled his spoon-rigged minnow in a tree over the opposite bank. I stowed my rod and moved our skiff toward his problem. Fish Are Biting ... The Susquehanna Flats is still producing great catches of yellow perch. The neds are also showing now on the Tuckahoe and are imminent at Wye Mills (if the...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle; 3/3/11

Commercial Fishing in Crisis

Outlaws are marauding on the Chesapeake

The term waterman, unique to Chesapeake Bay, refers to a commercial fisherman harvesting oysters, blue crabs and finfish or otherwise making a living from Bay waters. Maryland has a 300-year tradition of this noble endeavor. Fish Are Biting ... The yellow perch run is on in the mid-Bay. Anglers are catching good numbers of these beautiful and tasty devils as the males are running up into the tributaries in advance of the spawn. Although the smaller fish run earliest, you will...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle; 2/24/11

Natural Resources Police Locate More Illegal Gill...

Reward up to $22,500

Illegal gill nets continue to be hooked by Maryland Natural Resources Police, with two more on February 11 bringing the month total to eight thousand yards of illegal net and 25,000 pounds of illegally caught rockfish. The latest two 900-yard strings of illegal gill nets were anchored in Eastern Bay. Both were in the vicinity of Bloody Point Light, one about a mile south and other about two and a half miles northeast. The poaching was bold and defiant, with the nets anchored...

Article - News; by Dennis Doyle; 2/17/11

Can’t Wait to Fish?

Link up with the chain pickerel

Fishing the Tidewater this early is an exercise in hope, humility and discomfort. These are times of unpleasant wind and bone-chilling temperatures. But for the determined angler, there can also be moments of heady triumph and the first real excitement of the season — not to mention a tasty fish dinner. Fish Are Biting ... Big yellow perch continue to be caught in the Northern Bay, near North East, when weather permits. Staging in deep water (40 to 50 feet)...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle; 2/17/11

Ten Tons of Bad News

Maryland Department of Natural Resources deserves to add Protection to its name

The relentless headlines the past week have told the first part of the story. Ten tons of rockfish, most of them 27 to 28 inches, were discovered in just three illegal gill nets set in waters south of Tilghman Island. That’s two thousand or more fish. Braving frigid weather and using simple grappling hooks dragged on long lines in the depths of the Chesapeake, Natural Resources Police finally gave credence to persistent rumors of significant commercial gill net poaching. Natural Resources...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle; 2/10/11

This Week’s Creature Feature

The Chesapeake Bay Rockfish

The striped bass, known around the Tidewater as the rockfish, is one of the most popular of all Eastern, saltwater, game fish. Found along the Atlantic Coast from Nova Scotia to Florida, rockfish have a lifespan of up to 30 years and have been know to exceed of 100 pounds. The current Maryland rod-and-reel record is 67 pounds and eight ounces. Maryland rockfish are spawned in the freshwater reaches of Chesapeake Bay tributaries and remain in the Bay until the age of eight or nine, when they...

Article - Creature Feature; by Dennis Doyle; 2/10/11

Pollution Alert

Once again Arnold’s Mill Creek pumping station has failed, dumping over a quarter-million gallons of raw sewage into Mill Creek. This spill is being blamed on the failure of two separate backup power sources. The station has been plagued with problems, most notably 2005’s three-million-gallon sewage spill, for which the watershed is still undergoing restoration. It’s arguable that the pumping station remains grossly inadequate to the development that has occurred in the area...

Article - News; by Dennis Doyle; 2/3/11