Big Rock, Big Concerns

Call it the rockfish season that never ends. Right up till the end of the year, Chesapeake Bay anglers are hauling in the biggest striped bass you've ever seen.

The one that recently caught my eye was the 65-pounder caught by Joseph Hedges of Annapolis, who checked in the massive rock (the local name for stripers) at Anglers Sporting Goods. They snapped a photo in the parking lot that quickly found its way into the local paper. Crikey, what a whopper!

Hedges has a huge grin, as befits a fellow who just caught a fish of a lifetime just 2 1/2 pounds shy of the state record. The rockfish looks, well, not so happy to be there.

Call me Scrooge, but it troubles me that sportfishermen continue to enthusiastically catch and keep these huge fish, almost all roe-laden females heading back to the Chesapeake from the ocean to lurk in deep holes, then swim up tributaries in March and April to spawn the next generation of the designated Maryland state fish.

The state's recreational rockfish season was scheduled to end Dec. 15 this year, but the Department of Natural Resources announced an extension through the end of the year. I buttonholed DNR Secretary John Griffin one night to ask why. He didn't have a ready answer, but shrugged when someone suggested it was "good for business."

Haven't we been down this road? For those who don't remember, striped bass got so scarce in the early 1980s after decades of overfishing, the state imposed a five-year moratorium in 1985 to keep them from disappearing altogether. Griffin was deputy secretary when that wrenching decision was made, so he certainly hasn't forgotten.

Rockfish now are back in abundance in these, their prime breeding waters, and every year the pressure builds to extend the seasons, ease regulations and make the landscape more inviting for exploitation, both commercial and recreational.

Nobody's immune to the attraction of catching a huge rock. When Tom Weaver and Dick Neville invited me along last week for a frigid Sunday morning of trolling off Kent Island, where many big 'uns have been boated, I jumped at the chance, then puzzled over how I might persuade my hosts to release a whopper if we were lucky enough to catch one.

It didn't come up. We had just one solid strike and that fish spat the hook. Once we'd scraped the ice off the cockpit floor, we enjoyed a pleasant day riding around in Neville's speedy Eastport 32, quaffed plenty of coffee laced with a bit of rum and were home in time for the football games.

On Thursday, New Year's Day, rockfish season finally closes and stripers will be safe from recreational anglers in all Maryland and Virginia portions of the Chesapeake, at least until trophy season reopens in April. But a very productive fishery just offshore stays up and running.

For a decade or so, fishing for big rock in the ocean just off the mouth of the Bay has been booming, and those waters remain open all winter. Last January off Virginia Beach, Fred Barnes of Chesapeake, Va., set that state's record for rockfish with a 73-pounder. Thousands of other lunker rock were taken by boats fishing within three miles of the shore, as permitted under the regulations.

Many charter boats targeting these fish work out of Virginia Beach Fishing Center on Rudee Inlet. Anglers are allowed to keep two fish a day over 28 inches, which means a charter boat carrying six people can load up with 16 rock (two for each angler, two each for captain and mate) weighing an average of perhaps 25 or 30 pounds. That's 400-500 pounds of rockfish.