We Just Missed It!

Type: Chesapeake
Region: Eastern
Location: Choptank River

Late in the afternoon on Thursday Steve Early and I managed to get out on the waters of the Upper Choptank River to observe the striped bass spawn. It had been warm all day and we were sure there would be some action around Kingston Landing; well there was but by the time we got there the party was mostly over. There was sign of sea gulls sitting on the water stuffed with errant fat that is released with the eggs during spawning process and the tide lines in the river showed a collection of fat, fish oil and white stuff; which one would imagine was sperm. There was still some splashing going on here and there and we even noticed a few big fish exit the shallows like some kind of torpedo headed for deeper water. Upon closer inspection one could see eggs floating under the surface everywhere (trillions?).

Perhaps the biggest highlight of our trip from Ganey�s Wharf to Kingston Creek for me was to listen to Steve talk about working on this section of the Choptank in the early to mid- 1980�s sampling the spawning population of striped bass or at least what was left of it. Steve talked of sections of the river where they drifted their sampling gill nets and which areas held snags or tricky currents. Perhaps the most startling point he made was that in a season of 5-days a week sampling they might catch no more than 500 striped bass total and many were small. Unbelievable, was all I could think of; since now one could catch that many in one drift gill net set. We have come a long way since the days before the 5-year moratorium and we all should remember that or if we�re too young to remember those days; at least respect and cherish this wonderful resource we�ve been entrusted with.

Unfortunately our hope was slightly dashed when we came around a corner of the river to see two guys in a boat trolling for striped bass in a spawning reach and a trio casting large plugs off the pier at Ganey�s Wharf; which is all very illegal. We still have a ways to go for sure and perhaps our job of educating fishermen to be responsible and understand how important it is to make sure we never take this resource for granted and fall back to those day�s prior to the moratorium.