This weekend ...
* Show time: The first of the lengthy late winter and early spring outdoor shows starts tomorrow with the opening of the three-day 15th annual Chesapeake Sportfishing Show at the Annapolis Armory. Limitations in the size of the armory is the only thing that holds this exceptionally popular show down. It's primarily a fishing show, targeting bay and ocean angling, with a sprinkling of the freshwater sport added. Boats, archery and hunting play a minor role, though there will be archery demonstrations. In addition to many booths featuring professional anglers and the latest in tackle there will be continuous fishing movies and seminars conducted by charter skippers and guides.
The seminar Trolling for Trophy Rockfish in May will start things off tomorrow at 7 p.m. At 8 it will be Bass Fishing In Maryland, and at 9, Fishing for Rock at the Bay Bridge.
The remaining seminar schedule: Saturday: 11 a.m., Rockfishing the Bay Bridge; noon, Bass Fishing In Maryland; 1 p.m., Upper Chesapeake Fishing Possibilities; 2 p.m., Trolling for Rock in May; 3 p.m., Mid-Atlantic Offshore Possibilities; 4 p.m., Rockfishing at the Bay Bridge; 6:30 p.m., Bass Fishing In Maryland.
Sunday: 11 a.m., Trolling for Trophy Rockfish In May; noon, Mid-Atlantic Offshore Possibilities; 1 p.m., Bass Fishing In Maryland; 2 p.m., Rockfishing at the Bay Bridge; and 3 p.m., Bass and Rockfishing.
Tomorrow's show hours are 6 to 10 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults; children under 15 admitted free. Call 1-410-841-6974.
Calendar ...
* Saturday: Polar Bear hike, 10 a.m., Downs Park, Pasadena. Call 222-6239.
* Saturday: Mountain Club of Maryland 10-mile hike at Pennsylvania's Michaux State Forest. Call 740-9754.
* Saturday: Qualifying events for the BASS Master BP Casting Kids Contest held this day at Salisbury Park, Salisbury, and Bethesda Methodist Church, Bethesda. State finals will be held Jan. 11 at BASS Expo at the Timonium Fairgrounds Cow Palace. Call 1-212-246-5050.
* Sunday: Another MCM hike, this one of 10 miles north of the dam at Prettyboy Reservoir. Call 335-2146.
* Monday: Reopener of the Maryland bow season for deer, which closes Jan. 31.
Planning ahead ...
* Jan. 8: Keith Walters, author of Chesapeake Stripers, will speak at a 7:30 p.m. public meeting of Freestate Fly Fishers at Hillsmere Elementary School, Annapolis. Call 1-410-798-1194,
* Jan. 11: Molson Challenge and Mid-Atlantic Snowboard Series, Wisp Ski Area, Deep Creek Lake. Call 334-1948.
* Jan. 19: Annual trout fishing clinic of the highly popular Potomac-Patuxent Chapter of Trout Unlimited, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wheaton High School Cafeteria, 12601 Dalewood Drive, Wheaton off Randolph Road, just west of Georgia Avenue. Call Ruth Novick, 410-384-0424.
* March 13: Deadline for sending comments regarding the raising of and shooting waterfowl (ducks and geese) over pen reared mallards, which has become a hot issue on the Eastern Shore as enforcement -- both state and federal -- has accelerated on such activities. Write U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of Law Enforcement, P.O. Box 3247, Arlington, Va. 22203-3247. For further information, call Deputy Chief Thomas L. Strigle, 1-703-358-1949.
* Jan. 24/25: Two-day special deer season in Worcester County to slow the increase in the deer herd there.
Ongoing ...
* Surf fishing vehicles are allowed at Delaware's Fenwick Island and Delaware Seashore State Park this winter; 8 a.m. to sunset at the former, 24 hours a day at the latter. Call 1-302-739-4506.
Names and places ...
* Maryland's wild turkey population continues to improve. DNR statistics indicate last year's hatch averaged six poults for each adult hen, and that's quite a hatch. In the fall kill, 72 percent were young of the year. Also, more than half of the bag occurred on private land.
Josh Sandt, who heads DNR's Wildlife Division, reports preliminary thinking for 1994 could involve opening spring turkey seasons in Carroll, Wicomico, Caroline, Kent, more of Queen Anne's, and part of Cecil. Turkey management is proving so successful that the DNR plans to stock only about 250 more wild turkeys in the state, then give up the practice and let the birds finish the job. Every county except Prince George's now have wild turkeys, and plans are under way to fill that void.
* Any hopes that hickory shad would be legally catchable this year are --ed in DNR regulations this year that prohibits the catch, keeping and possession of any hickory (or its roe) caught originating in Maryland.
* Maryland isn't the only state stocking hatchery-reared wild rockfish. Virginia has released 211,000 stripers of 3 to 10 inches in length in the Mattaponi and Pamunkey rivers of the Chesapeake complex. All have been tagged.
* Deborah Maddux, whose home is wherever billfish are running, has accomplished what no other angler, man or woman, has done. With her catch of a 303-pound Pacific blue marlin on 12-pound test line off Costa Rica, she became the first to hold IGFA world records for eight of the nine billfish species. She only started big game fishing in 1988 -- and among her marks is an Atlantic sailfish of 72 3/4 pounds taken on 2-pound test line, also a 71-pounder-plus on 3-pound line.
* Maybe Boston Harbor isn't as polluted as suggested in the last presidential campaign. Bernard Hamill got the third biggest blue in the IGFA annual contest from the harbor -- a 15 1/4 -pounder.
* To get an idea of how sea trout regulations will be tightened, consider that the federal plan being considered for implementation in individual states is designed to keep catches at 20 percent of the overall population.
* Bob Bandy of Northeast reports that his Bucks 'n Bears Lodge in northern Maine will accommodate non-guided as well as guided bear hunts this year. Hunting success rates have averaged above 50 percent, said Bandy, who advises early booking. Write Bob Bandy, 18 Porter Road, Northeast, Md. 21901.
* Two hundred-acre Barren Island off Dorchester County, and once a very popular waterfowl shooting area on the lower Eastern Shore, has been purchased by the Conservation Fund and transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which will manage it as a refuge for waterfowl, herons, terns, eagles and such. Fittingly, funding was made possible through fines collected for wetlands violations.
Question box ...
* Baltimorean Ron McCahan wants to know if 1991 BASS Classic winner Ken Cook will be among the features at the Jan. 10-12 BASS Expo at the Cow Palace.
Our answer: Cook, of Meers, Okla., who won the big one in Baltimore last August, won't be among the pro bassers offering seminars, but someone just as good will -- Randy Romig of Spring City, Pa., who followed Cook by only 3 ounces in the exciting $200,000 fish-off.
Romig might even be a better fisherman; certainly for the waters we fish. He is also very popular hereabouts. Also, coming to the Cow Place will be another local favorite Woo Daves of Spring Grove, Va. Add to that the young upcomer Shaw Grigsby, also BASS Expo regular Greg South who almost gave up being a doctor to concentrate on the pro tour, then held off for another several years.
* NOTE: To have an item or question included in the Outdoor Journal, write Bill Burton, The Evening Sun Sports Dept., 501 N. Calvert St., Baltimore, Md. 21278-0001.