April 21 is the date some 300,000 anglers have been waiting for since the season closed more than four long months ago. That’s opening day of rockfish trophy season, when giant striped bass — ocean-running beasts some of which were born decades ago in the Chesapeake — return to their natal waters to spawn.

Increased fees for hunting licenses and stamps died with the House Republican Caucus leading the fight to kill HP 1419 on March 26. The death was unexpected.     The first fee increases for hunting licenses and stamps in more than 20 years had been proposed by the Maryland Depart­ment of Natural Re­sources to counteract three forces: the long downward trend in hunting license revenues; a projected decline in federal matching monies; and the continued impact of a declining economy.

It was just the slightest bit of resistance.     I was working my minnow-tipped Tony spoon deep across a wide section of the Upper Choptank when that hint of hesitation made me lift my rod tip. With the feeling of yet more resistance, I set the hook and was rewarded by a heavy surge at the end of the line on my ultra-light spinning rod.

I expected rancor, high emotion and fireworks. Who wouldn’t complain, years into a recession, at being targeted for a substantial hike in fees?     What happened at last Saturday’s hunters’ roundtable was nothing of the kind.

The fish were big and fat: two limits of golden-yellow perch that barely fit into a large bucket. What a haul! Beautiful, healthy fish, most over 12 inches and a few that exceeded 14. Unfortunately they weren’t ours.     Angling friend Ed Robinson and I spent the day chasing that gold and just missing it. Starting out fishing from the Millington shoreline on the perfect cusp of a flood tide beginning to fall, we were told we should have been there yesterday.

Fishing and boating on Chesapeake Bay are among Maryland’s great attractions. But you’ve got to pay to play.     The list of what needs doing is long and constant:

Charles Rodney was poised precariously atop a low pile of downed tree toppings, matted with honeysuckle and woven through by sharp briars. The bright orange of his hunting shirt and hat made him visible through the thick undergrowth. He held his shotgun safely off to the side, and stomped the brush pile, first with one foot, then the other.     “Come on Slim, find ’em. Copper! Here Copper, get over here. Jack, get back in here. Come on Lou, hunt ’em up. Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya!”

At long last, Maryland’s commercial oyster industry is about to come under control of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Comprehensive recommendations like these are the only way to save that great public natural resource.

Daylight hours have been getting longer, yet most days, temperatures keep us in winter. But the yellow perch know that their springtime is here.     Moving now into the deeper water of the tributaries, they are forming large schools and staging. Yellow perch are the earliest fish to spawn in the Tidewater, and their run is the first trumpet sounding the Bay’s piscatorial spring.

Ye gads it’s been a difficult winter!         Today it’s bitter cold and windy, and the long-range forecast looks like a lot more of the same, except for the charming likelihood of a few days of freezing rain. With two of my offspring still in college, there is no fiscal possibility of escaping to the tropics.     I’ve got to face up to the inevitable, the imminent approach of the most agonizing month of the year, February.