By Angus Phillips
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Think the recession is hitting you hard? Consider the case of my neighbor Gino, who was on the way to Ocean City last weekend when he needed a bathroom stop. He spied a powerboat dealership he'd visited before and knew right where the men's room was.
But before he could cross the showroom floor he was tackled and brought to ground by Mitch "Bronco" Farber, a former Penn State linebacker who now makes his living selling high-powered muscle boats. Bronco pleaded innocent. "I thought he was a customer," he said.
Okay, only kidding, but who would blame him in these tough times? Muscle boats were all the rage a few years ago when gasoline was a dollar or two a gallon. But Baltimore for breakfast, Oxford for lunch doesn't sound as appealing when you're burning 35 or 40 gallons an hour to get there and back, and fuel is $4.50 a gallon or more at the dock. Crab cakes, $25; gas bill, $350 -- it just doesn't compute.
Still, there's a silver lining to every cloud. Last weekend we held our annual community picnic at the little Chesapeake overlook at the end of my street. For the first time in memory, it wasn't marred by the roar of Cigarette boats and Donzis racing up and down the Severn River at 70 mph, terrifying everyone in their paths.
To be sure, a couple of Jet Skis buzzed near shore, making moms nervous as their toddlers dodged them, but for the most part the view clear out to the Bay Bridge was of sailboats and a few small, outboard-powered fishing skiffs, plus some brightly colored sea kayaks along the beach. It was blissfully quiet.
We'd been crabbing the day before, Gino and I, and caught two dozen big jimmies in an hour and a half. The crazy barefoot waterskiers who like to get out at the crack of dawn and burn circles when the water is calm were conspicuously absent. Only one other crabber was in the creek.
That was Mr. Moreland, a retiree who gave up his big boat last year and said he was done with crabbing. But there he was, out with his granddaughter in a homemade plywood 15-footer, rowing silently along while she lay the trotline out. It was just like the olden days, pretty as a picture, quiet as a church.
With fuel prices skyrocketing, whole stretches of open ocean lie empty, too. We spent three days in the Gulf Stream two weeks ago after the rudder on our sailboat broke, which served us right for leaving on Friday the 13th. We twice crossed Baltimore Canyon, where you always see a few big sportfishing boats chasing tuna, dorado and marlin, but never saw the first one. Fuel costs to run out to the Stream and back are now $1,000 a day for a big sportfisherman out of Ocean City, and the average day-long tuna charter costs about $1,800. That's serious money, not for the fainthearted.
Nor are smaller charter boats closer to home avoiding the pinch. With all-day fees for Bay charters running $700 or so, Capt. Ed Darwin, who rarely wanders more than 10 miles from his home waters around the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, said he has openings on his summer calendar for the first time in years, even though rockfishing has been good.
I joined Steve Kaiser of Baltimore on a charter with Darwin last week. We caught fat rockfish up to 29 inches long and didn't have to fight for position anywhere, so scarce were other boats. I did notice that when he set up to drift live white perch over a fruitful-looking patch of bottom, Darwin killed the big Chevy gas-guzzler that powers his boat, Becky D. He used to leave the motor running.
If fuel costs encourage people to stay closer to home and explore, there's a good side to it. Larry Coburn and I occasionally drive hundreds of miles to get to good fishing spots on our Wednesday outings (his day off). Late last month we opted instead to try Rocky Gorge Reservoir, a stone's throw from his place in Laurel.
It was the tail end of bluegill spawning season, when the frisky sunfish move up to the shallows and dig craterlike depressions to deposit their eggs. Bluegills are fiercely protective of these nests in spring; if you drop a little cork popper over their heads, they'll smack it with fury.
I dragged my 40-year-old aluminum canoe out from the weeds behind the house and rustled up paddles and life jackets. The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission requires a $3 day permit to fish the reservoir, so we stopped at WSSC headquarters beforehand to get one.
It was well worth it. No one else was at the launch ramp and we didn't see another soul on the water all afternoon. Mountain laurel was in full bloom on the shore, plump bass cruised the shallows hunting minnows and bluegills were right where they were supposed to be.
The congregations of nests looked like giant egg cartons on the bottom. The water was gin-clear. We stood up in the canoe and overcame the wobblies to cast our flies over the nests. Bluegills lit up at the invasion, charging the little lures like white marlin chasing ballyhoo on the ocean blue.
We paddled four or five miles along the picturesque shoreline, stopping to cast at each bluegill hotspot, before a looming storm chased us back to the ramp. Minutes later we were engulfed in a deluge.
"That was fun," Coburn said as rain pelted down and the wind ripped branches and twigs off the trees. "I don't know why I don't get up there more often. It's 10 minutes from the house."
Why, indeed?
Like any addictive drug, $1-a-gallon gasoline makes you do some silly things. Now comes the reckoning. It could be worse. Two well-known problems in America are obesity and global warming. Maybe higher fuel and food prices are a partial solution. We could eat less, walk places or take the bike, or row or paddle our boats instead of burning fossil fuels, and explore beautiful places close to home instead of driving to East Jabip to catch a peacock bass.
As for those out-of-work muscle boat salesmen, they can become bouncers at juice bars, or sell solar panels and windmills.
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Coastal Conservation Association is looking for kids aged 9 to 13 to attend fishing day camps next month at Point Lookout State Park in Scotland. A few spots are open for two sessions July 21-25 and July 28-Aug. 1. Cost is $150 and includes a charter fishing trip. It's a day camp, no overnight accommodations. Call 888-758-6580.
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