Fishing Articles

2/10/12 Update: The original editorial by Mr. Ken Hastings was published here on 2/7/12. Below Mr. Hastings editorial is an editorial response from Maryland Fisheries Director Tom O'Connell dated 2/10/12. Mr. O'Connell requested that the response be published here and is being done with his full permission.

We start the week with guest columnist Ken Hastings.
In 2007, a bill to raise recreational fishing license fees was passed by the General Assembly but no one knows what happened to the money. DNR wanted more money to spend and recreational anglers looked like an easy touch. They weren’t going to complain about paying $10 more for a license to go with their $100,000 boat, trailer, tow vehicle, and fishing gear, especially if it would help improve the sport they loved. To keep the “accountability crowd” at bay, the bill had one of those “shall” (legalese for “not optional”) clauses requiring DNR to annually consult with the Sport Fisheries Advisory Commission on how to spend the revenues.

When the cost recovery train rolled into Annapolis, I realized that I had never witnessed any discussions on how to spend recreational revenues. I also discovered that MD law ...

by Jerry Norris
Well, it's January 2012 and it is about twenty degrees outside. Now isn’t that just lovely. Lots of folks are wishing for hard water so they can go ice fishing, but personally, I am ready for the shad bushes to bloom and the shad to run

Hickory Shad are usually the first fish that start showing up in the river in early ...

I received a first hand report from Richard White, Jr. on the monster pending new Virginia State Record striped bass caught yesterday. Way to go guys, what a sick catch! Check this fishing report out,

"We went out with every report not sounding good. We were on the Bada Bing with Capt. Tim Cannon from Pungo and I was mating from Chesapeake.

My father and brother-n-law drove down Fri morning from Brentsville, VA. We had good markings of bait of off Cape Henry but the bite was very slow. We caught one dog shark and a couple of hours later we had a rod double down with dead weight pulling. There was not much of any head shaking going on and when Cary was about to wear out then we got color and he broke the surface and the head looked like he was going to ...