Half a decade ago, when Maryland's recreational fishing season for striped bass (rockfish) was reopened after a five-year moratorium, there were predictions that the opening day of the fall fishery would create and perpetuate the same excitement among anglers that the start of deer firearms season does among hunters.
And indeed it has. The opening day for fall rockfish probably is the busiest fishing day of the year in Maryland tidal waters.
This fall season opens Saturday at 5 a.m., with a minimum size limit of 18 inches and a creel limit of one per day for all but charter-boat customers, who are allowed to keep two per person.
The season will close at 8 p.m. on Nov. 14.
In addition to normally required licenses, rockfish anglers also must purchase and carry with them a $2 striped bass permit. If a permit was purchased for the spring trophy season, it is still good for this fall.
Five years into the restricted seasons that followed the moratorium, rockfish are plentiful in Maryland waters, and a large portion of the strong 1989 class that was responsible for reopening the fishery should be of legal size this fall.
The rockfish have recovered so strongly, in fact, that as of Jan. 1, the stocks will be declared recovered from North Carolina to Maine.
So, how does one go about catching a legal rockfish?
If you haven't a boat or a friend with a boat, your best bet is a charter, which will run about $350 a day for six people, or a trip on a headboat, where fees are about $25 per person per day.
Shoreline fishermen will do well to try county or state parks such as Point Lookout, Sandy Point, Matapeake, the fishing pier on the Choptank River in Cambridge, Fort Smallwood and the like.
But if you have access to a boat, the business of catching rockfish becomes more complex because there are a number of methods to try and locations to investigate.
For those in small boats, creek mouths in the lower stretches of rivers are good bets on the falling tide because stripers will gather on the edges of the current to feed on shrimps, crabs, worms and small fish being drawn downstream. Marsh edges close to deeper water also are good choices, because they provide a reliable base to the food chain that leads from small crustaceans and worms eventually to predators such as stripers.
River channel edges, humps and structures such as bridge foundations also are good choices, and it often is best to fish the current eddies created by them.
Spinning tackle -- 6.5- to 7-foot rods light enough to cast lures weighing from about a half an ounce to one ounce and reels spooled with 8- to 12-pound test -- is a good choice.
Rattling lures, lead heads with plastic tails or shad imitations, bloodworms, grass shrimp, clam, crab or cut bait all will work well when fished on the edges of the current.
For deep-water boaters, it is hard to beat eeling at this time of year, because eels will be migrating out of the bay to spawn through the fall season and are a favorite food for rockfish.
The easiest way to go eeling for stripers is to find a jumble of boats crowded together -- the holes off Love Point and the Bay Bridge piers and pilings are pretty good choices -- politely idle in, shift into neutral and drop your baits, all the while keeping an eye out for those around you.
Try rigging a medium boat rod about 6 feet long with a reel similar to a Penn No. 209 spooled with 20-pound test. Pass the line through the eye of a bell sinker weighing about an ounce and knot on a 2/0 to 4/0 live bait hook. Hook the eel through both eyes and leave slack in the line once the sinker reaches bottom. You will feel the eel swimming at the end of the line -- until a striper takes the bait.
Rigs should be stout so that once hooked, a striper can be controlled before it can swim off and tangle the lines of those fishing around you.
Trolling will work well, too, with parachute lures in chartreuse, yellow and white very effective. White, silver or gold spoons in the 5- to 6-inch range and surgical hose of the same lengths in red, green or natural are great alternatives. Lures should be trolled mostly in the top 12 to 15 feet of the water column early in the season and dropped down as the surface temperature cools.
In the bay from the Patapsco to the Bay Bridge, look for humps in hard or oyster bottom and channel edges, especially below river mouths on the falling tide. The current will create the same effect river fishermen expect from creek mouths, except on a much larger scale.
With the season starting a week earlier this year than last, perhaps the most fun fishing will be casting to breaking schools of stripers and bluefish.
With the birds whirling and screeching overhead, silversides and anchovies breaking the surface and blues and stripers chasing them in a feeding frenzy, it is a spectacle to experience -- and the fishing can be hot and heavy.
If you find a breaking school, try to fish under it where the larger fish are likely to be. Cast across and beyond an outer section of the school, let your lure sink to 5 feet or so and then retrieve slowly enough to keep it deep.
The fall season also offers a fine opportunity for fly fishermen, especially in the early weeks, when the water will be warm enough to keep the stripers in the shallows near points and bars.
Fly tackle also is great for use around creek mouths and over flats when the light is dim.
For anglers interested in headboats, The Tom Hooker runs out of Chesapeake Beach (call [301] 855-8450 or [800] 233-2080), the Bay King runs out of Ridge near Point Lookout ([301] 872-5185) and Capt. Eldridge Meredith runs a service out of Kent Narrows ([410] 827-8541), just across the Bay Bridge.
FISHING HOT SPOTS
CHESAPEAKE BAY: With rockfish season opening Saturday at 5 a.m., the prospects are good, although there are large numbers of sub-legal stripers in shallower water. Best bets from Bloody Point north are stone rip-rap or concrete and wood pilings with rattling crankbaits or bucktails with twister tails or plastic shad; humps or channel edges with trolled spoons, surgical hose or drifting bait such as soft crab, whole bloodworms, eel or whole small white perch; deep holes are fished best with live eel. Below Bloody Point, trolling and chumming are good choices. Bluefish and spanish mackerel also present.
OCEAN CITY: Tuna and dolphin fishing is hot and the chances of taking blue and white marlin quickly are diminishing. Boats out of the Ocean City Fishing Center (410-213-1121) have been doing very well on overnight trips, with yellowfin tuna from 30 to 50 pounds taken at the 100 fathom line and large dolphin hitting 40 to 50 miles offshore from the Baltimore to Washington canyons. Closer inshore, headboats are taking limits of large croaker and snapper blues along with some sea trout and sea bass. In the O.C. inlet area, catches of large flounder, scattered legal (28-inch minimum on the oceanside) rockfish and some decent blues and sea trout have been hitting.