Chesapeake Light Tackle

Gone are the fair-weather boaters with their blaring radios and boats bristling with broomsticks.  No more planer-board trollers claiming 300 foot right-of- ways, or obnoxious broadcasters insulting everyone with a VHF radio within 50 miles.  Catch & release season is the time of year when the one-man-one-rod concept reigns supreme.  It’s when you can run on-plane for miles in the wide-open Bay and never see another fishing boat.  A time when there’s very little competition for prime fishing spots, and a small but tight fraternity of hard-core fishermen brave the elements to jig the cold-weather hotspots.  I anticipate the start of C&R season like a kid waits for Christmas.

My sons Jacob and Daniel are visiting from Tennessee this week.  We’ve been trying to work a fishing trip into our schedule, but we couldn’t get it all together until today.  Read More!

Like most anglers, I love to eat fish.  One of my favorite family traditions is fish for breakfast.  Occasionally when we have guests visiting, the fishermen in the house get up before everyone else and spend the daybreak hours on the water.  If things go as planned, we’re back before the house starts to stir, preparing a delicious breakfast of eggs, grits, fresh tomatoes, homemade biscuits, and freshly caught fish.  That being said, I don’t keep most of the fish I catch.  By letting them go, I get the same satisfaction out of my fishing experiences while contributing to the sustainability of the sport I love.

The inclination toward releasing fish is fairly modern.  Some Native American tribes believe that it is wrong to release a fish.  According to their culture, the fish allows itself to be caught.  It chooses to sacrifice its life to provide food for the angler.  To release any part of it back into the water would dishonor the fish and result in poor fishing the following year.  These beliefs were formed at a time when they speared, netted, trapped, or caught their fish with hand-made equipment, perseverance, and a little benevolence from the Great Spirit. Read More!