The smiles were bigger than the fish. But that's the way it usually is at the annual Wish-A-Fish event at Sandy Point State Park.
Sure, the kids had ear-to-ear grins painted on their faces yesterday. But so did their parents and the scads of volunteers who handed out the fishing gear and life jackets, drove boats, took pictures and served food.
So did I.
You've got to try really hard to have a lousy time. Consult the Grinch. Sit your snow cone in the sun. Stick your hand in a hornets' nest.
Because the bottom line is droopy faces are not allowed.
The weather, which caused problems in years past, mostly behaved itself, except for the stiff wind from the north that chopped the Chesapeake Bay like a Cuisinart.
A few grown-ups turned green, but the kids figured it was some sort of an amusement park ride.
Wish-A-Fish began eight seasons ago, the idea of Rod Rice, an avid angler who thought children with special needs and their families ought to be able to leave their cares on the dock and be treated to a free day on the bay.
By word of mouth and through the state's network of care and treatment providers, Wish-A-Fish has grown. The group at Sandy Point consisted of 68 children and 58 adults.
"We've been waiting for this since January," said Denise Rulo of Severna Park as she boarded Ed Mezewski's boat with her husband, Bill, and their twin sons, Jake and Drew.
Jake is autistic, and Denise said she is grateful for the outing.
"It's nice that they do things for the whole family because it's expensive to care for a child with autism and this might not be something we would do otherwise."
Celidreya Brown, 7, and her sister, Cydni, 3, of Camp Springs could hardly wait to get out on the water. Their parents, Teia and Robert, seemed pretty excited, too.
"We signed up, hoping to get picked," said Teia Brown, her eyes dancing. "And we did!"
The family caught seven keepers -- an assortment of the Chesapeake Bay's best.
Celidreya, who has Down Syndrome, said she liked the boat ride as much as she liked the fishing.
"Do it again," she said, nodding vigorously.
On the other side of the equation, the volunteer pool has expanded, too, mostly through the tidalfish.com Web site.
The flotilla ranged from 21-foot pleasure craft to a 40-foot Robbins commercial fishing boat brought over from Cambridge by Duane Woolford that was perfect for wheelchair anglers.
Skip Zinck, the event coordinator, made sure families got on the right boats, bait and tackle was supplied, and children got goodie bags.
"We love doing this," he said. "Looking at the kids, how can you not?"
Catering By Windows of Arlington, Va., once again stepped up with a groaning board's worth of hot dogs, hamburgers and other picnic eats.
Just when it seemed impossible for the Wish-A-Fish aura to get any happier, I ran into Brian Cain, a volunteer who lives in Monkton, and his two children, Brenden, 14, and Melissa, 12. Nearby was another helper, Lisa Hamilton, a deaf interpreter.
Seems Cain and Hamilton met six years ago at the Sandy Point event and will be getting married Sept. 8.
"I knew the first minute I saw him," Hamilton said.
Wish-A-Fish as a dating service, who knew?
To learn more about Wish-A-Fish, check www.wish-a-fish.org.
Waterfowl rules
The Atlantic Flyway Council -- the folks who set the parameters of the waterfowl hunting season -- are meeting this week to do just that.
Larry Hindman, Maryland's lead waterfowl biologist, predicts little will change from last year.
With the exception of scaup, ducks had an above-average breeding year, he told the Wildlife Advisory Commission, which met last week in Annapolis. Redheads, northern shovelers and canvasbacks are at record-high levels.
"I'm excited about the forecast for ducks. We just need some weather and rain to fill in those wetlands," Hindman said.
However, he predicted a "so-so" goose hunting season based on surveys of the migratory Canada geese population. Nesting effort was poor and the weather remained severe late into the breeding season on Canada's Ungava Peninsula.
Once the council meets to iron out differences among the states in the Atlantic Flyway, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources will hold a public meeting at 7 p.m. on Aug. 16 at Chesapeake College to review the proposal.
Maryland's proposal will be sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for approval. Action will come by mid-September.
Empty seats
Speaking of the Wildlife Advisory Commission, when is the O'Malley administration going to favor us all by filling the three, soon to be four, vacancies? Only four commissioners were at last week's meeting. The commission is supposed to have nine members. So there wasn't a quorum unless you buy the company line that if you subtract the three open seats from nine, you get six, which makes four OK.
The governor's office confirms that DNR sent over a list of candidates last month. So what's the holdup? Are the governor's people hoping for the second coming of Marlin Perkins? Grizzly Adams?
Wake up over there, guys.
candy.thomson@baltsun.com