May 2021

CHESAPEAKE BAY MAGAZINE

Scheible’s Fish Camp Gets a Chic Update

Make Your Yard a Bay-Wise Garden

Go Tarpon Fishing On the Eastern Shore

our anniversary issue

MAY 1971-2021

MAY 2021

o n th s r a e ye b

ay

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

U.S. $7.99

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Family Owned & Operated Since 1945

porcelain basin at the home of James Ozzle Strigle and his wife Dot was where famed J.O. Spice crab seasoning was first created in the 1940s.

A native of Tangier Island, VA, James worked in the meat industry. A few of the original blends he created were cures for meats — the legal name of the company is J.O. Spice and Cure Company.

They started J.O. Spice in 1945 when the couple opened their first storefront in Baltimore, selling directly to watermen.

The original formulation was J.O. #1 All Purpose Seafood Seasoning — which can be used on anything.

Later on, J.O. #2 was formulated as a crab seasoning for steaming crabs only. This “crab only” formulation is better for steaming crabs as the seasoning would adhere to the shell during the steaming process.

Since then, the company has grown to offer much more than just seasonings. Supplying crabs houses with crab paper, mallets, baskets, batters, soup mixes and more, J.O. Spice has now branched out to custom gifts such as cutting boards and tumblers.

J.O. Spice remains family run, in the late eighties daughter Jane McPhaul, took over the operations.

After serving in the USMC, McPhaul’s son Donald Ports joined her in the nineties and took over operations in 2000.

The family sticks close to its roots — and honors its history. As J.O. once said, “We offer quality seasonings and spices at reasonable prices.

Quality doesn’t cost, it pays.”

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HE MAY THINK HE’S THE CAPTAIN, BUT

Volume 51

Number 1

PUBLISHER John Stefancik

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Meg Walburn Viviano

MANAGING EDITOR Chris Landers

Cruising Editor: Jody Argo Schroath Multimedia Journalist: Cheryl Costello Contributing Editor: Susan Moynihan Editors at Large: Wendy Mitman Clarke, Chris D. Dollar, Ann Levelle, John Page Williams Contributing Writers: Rafael Alvarez, Laura Boycourt, Larry Chowning, Ann Eichenmuller, Henry Hong, Marty LeGrand, Emmy Nicklin, Nancy Taylor Robson, Karen Soule

CREATIVE DIRECTOR Jill BeVier Allen

Contributing Photographers: Andy Anderson, Mark L. Atwater, Skip Brown, André Chung, Dan Duffy, Jay Fleming, Austin Green, Jameson Harrington, Mark Hergan, Jill Jasuta, Vince Lupo, K.B. Moore, Will Parson, Tamzin B. Smith, Chris Witzgall

PRODUCTION MANAGER Patrick Loughrey

SENIOR GRAPHIC DESIGNER Mike Ogar

ADVERTISING Senior Account Manager Michael Kucera • 804-543-2687 m.kucera@ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com Senior Account Manager Megan Tilley • 919-452-0833 megan@ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

Publisher Emeritus Richard J. Royer

CIRCULATION Theresa Sise • 410-263-2662 office@ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

CHESAPEAKE BAY MEDIA, LLC Chief Executive Officer, John Martino Executive Vice President, Tara Davis

601 Sixth Street, Annapolis, MD 21403 410-263-2662 • fax 410-267-6924 ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com Editorial: editor@ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com Circulation: circ@ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com Billing: billing@ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

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Chesapeake Bay Magazine (ISSN0045-656X) (USPS 531-470) is published by Chesapeake Bay Media, LLC, 601 Sixth Street, Annapolis, MD 21403. $25.95 per year, 12 issues annually. $7.99 per copy. Periodical postage paid at Annapolis, MD 21403 and additional offices. POSTMASTER: Please send address changes or corrections for Chesapeake Bay Magazine to 601 Sixth Street, Annapolis, MD 21403. Copyright 2021 by Chesapeake Bay Media, LLC— Printed in the U.S.A.

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CONTENTS

MAY 2021—Volume 51 Number 1

40 Once Upon Our Time

30

Capt. Jody Argo Schroath looks at 50 years of boating on the Bay.

52 Transformation & Tradition

The ups and downs of crabs and oysters this past half-century— Kate Livie.

52 Cambridge, Md.

BALTIMORE

Susan Moynihan visits a former fish camp reborn as a modern hotel and restaurant in Southern Maryland.

30 Bay-Wise Gardens Reimagined

DE

WASHINGTON D.C. ST. MICHAELS 30

18

Princess Anne Co., Md.

20

Chincoteague, Va.

84 Magothy Bay 52

After five decades of restoration efforts, Capt. John Page Williams asks how we’re doing.

22 Respect the Past

22 Ridge, Md.

MD

ANNAPOLIS

62 Cleaning Up The Bay

Talk of the Bay

Talbot County, Md.

18

22

20

VA VA

DELTAVILLE

On the Cover

CAPE CHARLES 84

Thomas Point Shoal Light, the last screw-pile lighthouse in the Bay in

NORFOLK

it’s original location.

Shape your yard into a Bay-friendly paradise—Nancy Taylor Robson.

Photo by Greg Pease

May 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

JAY FLEMING

Features

13

CONTENTS

Columns 20 Chesapeake Cocktail

Laura Davis puts a Chesapeake spin on an old standard.

34 On Boats

Capt. John Page Williams takes a spin in the Pathfinder 2600 TRS.

84 Wild Chesapeake LAURA DAVIS/TIDEANDTHYME.COM

Capt. Chris Dollar goes in search of the tricky tarpon.

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 14

DEPARTMENTS

16 From the Editor 18 Mail 96 Stern Lines BAY PARTNERS

72 Real Estate 88 Brokerage

SPECIAL ADVERTSING SECTION

72 Hot Rural Real Estate

Today’s homebuying trend puts the “remote” in working remotely.

These experts can help you find the perfect spot away from the bustle.

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50th anniversary requires a combination of good fortune and perseverance, which is probably why the U.S. Census estimates only about six percent of couples manage to stay married that long.

May 2021 marks Chesapeake Bay Magazine’s Golden Anniversary. The publication began printing in May 1971, bearing a woodcut of a screwpile lighthouse, to help Chesapeake enthusiasts find the hidden gems of the Bay. As with a 50-year marriage, CBM’s existence today is made possible by good fortune and perseverance.

Our good fortune came in the form of “the right people at the right time.” Over and over, talented people happened to come along, ready to breathe new life into the magazine just when it was needed. CBM is all the better for them. Throughout its evolution, some of the magazine’s most popular editors have stood steadfastly with us. Jody Argo Schroath has been teaching boaters how to sneak past tricky shoals into delightful anchorages for decades, and John Page Williams likes to remind me he’s been writing for this magazine longer than I’ve been alive.

We’re lucky to have all this talent in our pages, but no 50th anniversary comes from luck alone: it is won with perseverance. When “media experts” said print magazines would go extinct, CBM’s leaders didn’t back down on their mission to share stories of the Chesapeake Bay. Our magazine continued through the Great Recession—and, now, also through a

May 2021 11/18/2019 10:26:53 AM

global pandemic.

Five decades in, CBM continues to produce an artfully-presented magazine for readers to touch and hold. And in recent years, we’ve expanded to offer a convenient digital “flipbook” as well.

We now report pressing stories of Bay interest in our online news section, Bay Bulletin, relaying updates in real time on social media. And we’ve incorporated video into our storytelling, because the Chesapeake is the ultimate visual medium—a place of beauty and action.

As we carry on CBM’s mission of “Celebrating Why We Live Here”, our 50th anniversary issue looks at the Chesapeake of 1971 and the Chesapeake of 2021. Major events have changed our waterway and the culture around it: extreme weather, pollution, development, science, and technology. Still—many of the things we love about the Bay remain the same: delicious, fresh fish, crabs, and oysters; the remarkable ecosystem that sustains them; a boating lifestyle unlike anywhere else.

A passion for the Bay—shared between the people who make CBM and those who read it—is what makes this 50-year “marriage” flourish. Thank you, subscribers, for making our Golden Anniversary possible!

Meg Walburn Viviano grew up boating on the Magothy River. She started as a Chesapeake Bay Magazine intern, launched the Bay Bulletin online news site in 2017, and now leads all of CBM’s media content. Reach her at meg@chesapeakebaymagazine.com.

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May 2021

COURTESY PHOTO

MAIL CALL

A Long-Distance Bay Bond

I

started reading CBM in 1984 after we purchased a pre-owned CAL 25 and kept it at Herrington Harbor North. It wasn’t but a year or two later that my dad and mom visited from Louisville, Ky. and we took them for a sail to Oxford. Before we could make the last turn into Oxford, a fast-moving squall was approaching and I went to the bow to drop anchor in the middle of the Tred Avon River. My dad hollered out, “Be sure to tie off the anchor line!”

The anchor line flew through my hands as 25-knot winds buffeted our boat with my wife, mother, and 3-year-old child hunkered down below. When I saw the bitter end, I knew what I had to do and I grabbed hold of the line, burning my hands, while getting a half-turn around the cleat. I was not about to let that damn anchor line go, no matter what, with my dad at the helm.

The anchor set and I went back to the cockpit and never said a word about how close we had come to becoming a boat on the loose. We sat in the cockpit and enjoyed the wind and rain pelting us while sharing a short glass of rum.

After my dad and mom’s sailing trip to Oxford, they became true lovers

of the Bay. My dad often said over the decades that we are on the best sailing water in the country. I bought a CBM subscription for my Dad and it was sent to Naples, Fla. for two decades. Later, his subscription address changed to Highlands, N.C. and eventually back to his final residence in an assisted living facility in Louisville.

My dad passed away in January this year, only hours from his 88th birthday. I will dearly miss our phone conversations that he started by saying, “Do you have your Chesapeake Bay Magazine? Turn to page so and so and tell me what you think about the story.” And so it would go with my dad expounding on what he had read and asking questions like, have you visited that place, do you know that person, or have you eaten at that restaurant?

Always ending with, “You are so lucky to be on the best water for boating.”

Dad, you are right, and I am forever grateful to you for sharing Chesapeake Bay Magazine with me and making our lives richer.

—Paul “Bo” Bollinger Jr., Executive Director, Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating

SoCal Loves the Chesapeake

I

am old. 86 years, born is Los Angeles and have lived all my life in southern California, except for two years in the army… I am a true California addict.

Probably my best friend Gordon Stellway moved to Maryland, perhaps 15 years ago. Five or so months ago, that rascal gave me a subscription to Chesapeake Bay Magazine.

I have perhaps 12 magazines I subscribe to and get monthly.

Wonderful reading, National Geographic, Archeology, Readers Digest, Surfer’s Digest, etc.

HOWEVER, when your magazine arrives I read it and get an entirely

different feeling. A large part of me would like to live in the Chesapeake Bay area. The home prices that are listed are AMAZINGLY low. Right on the water, oysters at your front door.

Such living is perhaps three to four times more expensive here in southern California. I almost longingly look at the boats, a home on the water, etc. But at my advanced age and with all my family and friends here, a move is out of the question.

So to sum up my thoughts, HOORAY FOR YOUR MAGAZINE. It does what many magazines do not do. It provides the reader with a wonderful view of a different lifestyle that is very different from what most

of us have here in southern California.

A big part of me wishes I were younger so my wife and I could spend some time in your area.

—Gary Stellern Pasadena, California

CORRECTION

Due to an editorial error, photo credits were omitted from last month’s story, “Gilbert Klingel’s Bay.” They should have been credited to Aubrey Bodine, the Natural History Society of Maryland, and Marcy Benouameur.

Chesapeake Bay Magazine regrets the error. h

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ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 20

May 2021

CHESAPEAKE COCKTAIL

Chesapeake Bloody Mary

T

his month’s cocktail comes courtesy of Chincoteague food blogger Laura Davis (tideandthyme.com), who put a Chesapeake twist on this classic, perfect for a 50th Anniversary CBM brunch. She says: “The sweet crab meat sits perfectly perched on top of the savory Bloody Mary. It can be enjoyed before the cocktail, or let to steep in the tomato juice and absorb the delicious tomato flavor. With the addition of the crab, it’s really almost a meal as well.”

1 cup tomato juice 1/3 cup vodka or gin 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce 1/2 lemon, juiced 1/2 tsp Old Bay or J.O. Spice No. 2 few dashes hot sauce 2 celery stalks lemon wedges dilly beans or pickled okra 1/4 cup jumbo lump crabmeat ice 1. Fill two tall glasses with ice.

Set aside.

2. Combine tomato juice, vodka or gin, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, crab spice, and hot sauce in a carafe. Stir or swirl to combine. Pour into ice-filled glasses.

3. Garnish drinks with a stalk of celery, a lemon wedge, a few dilly beans or pickled okra, and a small handful of the crabmeat right on top.

4. Sprinkle with additional J.O. Spice or Old Bay, if desired.

by Laura Davis tideandthyme.com

TALK OF THE BAY

Timeless Transformation

A 1940s fish camp is reborn at Pier450 in St. Mary’s County—by Susan Moynihan

SUSAN MOYNIHAN

E

veryone who grew up in St. Mary’s County knows about Scheible’s fish camp. Built in 1946, this family-run fish camp and restaurant was a favorite for charter captains around the Bay for 50-plus years. So when Oklahoma-born, D.C. transplant Peggy Binzel decided to turn it into something else, she knew she needed to tread carefully, respecting the past while birthing a new concept.

The result is Pier450, a mid-century style motel and restaurant with a cheeky feel that nods to its roots while offering something completely different.

If you haven’t been to St Mary’s County in a while, you’ll find that not much has changed—and that’s exactly the appeal. There are no big-box stores, no traffic jams, no hustle and bustle; just acres of rolling farmland, plentiful boat launches and back roads,

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 22

May 2021

a few mom and pop shops, and some of the prettiest beaches around the Bay. It’s the latter that first drew Peggy Binzel to St. Mary’s County back in 2007, when she was working in communications in Washington, D.C. and looking for a weekend escape.

“I was looking for a beach house that was two hours from Washington and didn’t involve crossing the Bay Bridge,” said Binzel. “I knew nothing about St. Mary’s County. By process of elimination, I ended up finding this house that needed renovation in Scotland. I saw the photos, and said to the realtor, ‘This is it.’”

She started coming down on weekends and fell in love with the area, as did the friends who accompanied her. She decided to buy a second house on a larger plot of land, intending to renovate it and sell the first. Then came the real estate crash of

END OF THE ROAD Pier450’s mural (opposite) is by local artist Molly Hewitt; plentiful fire pits overlook the beach and original pier.

May 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

23

2008—so she changed tack. “It was very early in the vacation rental business. But I thought I’d give it a try, and it worked.”

That impulse eventually turned into Scotland Yards, a collection of 10 luxe vacation cottages tucked in a quiet neighborhood just down the road from Point Lookout State Park. Guests love the tranquil setting, but when asked if they had any suggestions for improvement, she consistently heard the same request: more dining options.

Courtney’s is a nearby staple that serves up seafood in a down-home, no-frills setting, but for variety you need to drive 30 minutes back up the peninsula, to Leonardtown.

Enter Scheible’s Restaurant and Fishing Center. The family-run fish camp flourished for decades, running

charters off of its long pier. Generations of kids and adults worked there seasonally, managing boat traffic, helping clean the catch, or feeding hungry fisherman. After the charter fishing business took a tumble in the late 1990s, the Scheibles sold it. It went through a few iterations as a restaurant, but then sat empty, like so many businesses in rural parts of the region.

“It was probably two or three years that it sat vacant on the market,” said Binzel. Folks suggested she buy it, but she had never run a motel, let alone a restaurant. “We always talked about it, and worried that if someone bought it and used it for some other purpose, we’d lose it forever,” she said.

So she secured the financing and went to work.

Renovations began in summer 2019. Local building codes meant they had to keep the property’s existing structures and footprint, which was both a blessing and a challenge. For example, each motel room was a scant 246 feet, with shower-stall bathroom— all that a fisherman needed on a charter in the 1950s, but not ideal for today’s vacationers.

“I love designing for small spaces; it’s one of my passions, because I really do think we can live smaller,” said Binzel, who did the interior décor with help from collaborator Paul Haynes.

She raised the ceilings in the rooms and restaurant, revealing the wooden beams beneath them. In the motel, now renamed The Quarters at Pier450, colorful Moroccan-style tiles brighten up the bathrooms, and organic cotton

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mattress offer a sweet sleeping spot.

Each room has its own theme and decor, like the Texoma, which nods to Binzel’s roots with a longhorn mount and a cowhide rug. Many of the furnishings were acquired at estate sales, collected with no plan but ‘That’s cool, let’s get it!’ In the lobby, an antique sofa gets new life with a perky striped fabric. The Union Jack armchair in the bar sits opposite a painting by a MICA graduate, who reached out to Binzel one day thinking she might like it. It sounds disparate, but it works.

Transparency was key to Binzel and her team, so throughout the 15-month renovation process they shared their progress on social media.

“We wanted people to be excited, but we knew that there would be

RETRO REDO The Quarters (top) gains new life as a boutique motel; the original restaurant, pre-transformation (bottom).

May 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

25

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ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

May 2021

skepticism, too,” said Pier450 partner and chief marketing office Cathy Austin. “This was childhood for a lot of people.”

“We had a lot of interaction with Scheible’s alum—people who worked there and people who had been customers,” said Binzel. “We talked about how we wanted to maintain some things—continue the focus on seafood, for example—but also said it wasn’t going to be the same.”

The new Pier450 debuted in fall 2020, and the restaurant, named POV, is at the heart of it. The bright, cheery dining room connects to a cozy bar, and a half-open kitchen. Outside are bistro tables, an outdoor dining deck, and a lawn with plentiful fire pits that leads down to the beach. The original Scheible’s sign hangs in the back, while a colorful mural from local artist Molly Hewitt reminds visitors, “The world is your oyster.” The namesake pier extends 450 feet out into Smith Creek, perfectly primed for sunset viewing.

Binzel’s aim, food-wise, was for “casual fine dining” that fits the Bayside setting. The kitchen is led by chef Carlos Gomez-Starnes, whose background includes The Mayflower and Hay-Adams hotels in DC. His menu features Bay-centric dishes such as Maryland-style crabcakes and gumbo topped with pan-seared rockfish, and he brings an international influence with his stellar Spanish paella, as well as weekly themed dinners focused on cuisines from Cuba to New Zealand.

They source as much as they can locally, and have big plans for the onsite garden.

Despite opening off season in a pandemic, Pier450 is already a hit.

Reservations are strongly suggested on weekends, when dinner specials and brunch bring people down for the night or the weekend. Summer will bring a whole lot more, including loaner kayaks for exploring, live music, and sunset cruises.

“I am incredibly excited about Pier450 and proud of the work that

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they have already done,” says District 1 Commissioner Eric Colvin, who helped Binzel and her team navigate the county’s Byzantine regulatory restrictions. “They were able to overcome multiple hurdles in order to create an absolutely stunning experience. The desire of the owners to honor and respect the history of Scheible’s is a huge part of the success [and] …creates a true gem in the southern part of St. Mary’s County.”

I went down for a midweek stay in early February, to meet up with the original Scheibles. Captain Bruce and his wife Sally live just down the road from Pier450, and daughter Ellen had flown from Boston for the occasion.

When I got there, they were clustered around a low table in the corner of the bar, happily digging into some local oysters and crab balls as they waited for some friends to come by. “I poured these floors by hand,” Captain Bruce said, directing my attention down.

“That floor that you’re standing on is 15 inches deep!”

When asked what he thought of the renovation, he beamed. “We love to see people and activity, love to see people having fun—that’s what it’s all about. She’s done a beautiful job. We had a little ol’ fishing camp and she’s turned it into a very beautiful place.”

His daughter Ellen agreed. While the bones of the original Scheible’s are evident at every turn, Pier450 is something new, in a good way. “The only way that somebody could make a place like this work is to do something radically different from what it was as originally,” she said. “By turning it into something different, you maintain that space and respect that space but turn it into something that’s your own. That’s when you have the opportunity to move it forward.”

Susan Moynihan writes about travel and food, and is the author of 100 Things to Do in Annapolis and the Eastern Shore. Follow her at @susanmoynihan.

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ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

29

TALK OF THE BAY

Bay-Wise Gardens Reimagined

by Nancy Taylor Robson

RACHEL RHODES, HORTICULTURE EDUCATOR AND MASTER GARDENER COORDINATOR FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND EXTENSION IN QUEEN ANNE’S COUNTY

T

here’s a silver lining to the Charlie Foxtrot that was Key to the program is the Bay-Wise Yardstick, which 2020: People discovered gardening. Even those who has 61 possible steps, broken into eight categories. Steps hadn’t tried to grow herbs (never mind what kind) in taken in one category often offer benefits in others. For college flocked to garden centers and bought a plant or 20. example, the native shrubs, trees, ground covers, and “Victory gardens!” the people said. “Let us eat vegetables!” grasses you’ve planted to control stormwater runoff (that’s But it was more than a culinary impulse. Gardening— one category) and prevent erosion also act as shelter, cultivating a plant that silently absorbs our angst and habitat, and food source, thus encouraging wildlife returns beauty, (another category). fragrance, butterflies, While the Plant Wisely and maybe even category urges use of salad—is protective evergreens psychologically to the north and nourishing. “In some deciduous trees to the ways, I think people south to cut down on are kind of excited,” energy use, it also says Mikaela Boley, provides habitat and who coordinates the draws pollinators and Master Gardener birds (natural program for Talbot integrated pest County, Md. But what management, another does that have to do category) that benefit with the Chesapeake? your victory garden.

Lots.

Encouraging “Homeowners are wildlife also offers more in tune with enormous what’s going on with entertainment. Take in their environment and a troop of 10 cedar are paying a little more waxwings passing a attention to how they winterberry fruit from can adapt practices to one bird to the next on help the Bay,” says a branch. Watch a fat Rachel Rhodes, Master baby robin test his Gardener coordinator barely-fledged wings for Queen Anne’s while his nest-bound County, Md. siblings shout, “Go on!

MEASURING UP What we do—or don’t do—on I dare ya!” It’s like a homegrown Bay-wise gardens meet a set of land profoundly affects the health of Discovery channel. standards set by master gardeners. the Bay, so acting on that knowledge Controlling stormwater runoff by is, as Oprah would say, HUGE. keeping water on your property also Bay-Wise, the University of Maryland Extension saves on your utility bills since you use less water for the stewardship program designed 25 years ago by Wanda landscape and less electricity for the well water pump.

MacLachlan, offers a straightforward plan. “I wanted to Adopted broadly, the cost benefits are multiplied. create a holistic approach to [individual] land Twenty-five years ago, Portland, Ore. was threatened management,” she explains. with a lawsuit for polluting the Willamette River. When

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 30

May 2021

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they realized there was a limit to upsizing the infrastructure, they adopted a greener approach, including green roofs, green streets, and rain gardens. They asked residents to disconnect their downspouts from the storm drain system. The measures significantly diminished runoff and resulted in approximately $65 million in municipal savings. Programs like Bay-Wise were inspired by that success.

Once a property reaches 36 inches on the Bay-Wise Yardstick, the gardener earns a nifty little yard sign to encourage their neighbors to follow suit. And in Charles County, Md., proof of Bay-Wise certification reduces the county watershed fee by 50 percent on one’s property tax bill, in acknowledgment of environmental savings.

Traditionally, properties are certified as Bay-Wise via a visit or two by trained volunteer advisors. They walk around a property with the owner, examining the lay of the land, the exposure, soil type, and plants. In early 2020, in-person visits were suspended, yet Bay-Wise consultations and certifications continue virtually.

“Instead of the site visit, they do it via Zoom,” says MacLachlan.

“We had some interns who wanted their gardens certified and were interested in trying it,” says Ellen West, Bay-Wise Chair for Frederick County, Md. Master Gardeners, whose team devised the procedure. At first, they relied on the owner carrying a smart phone around the property, but the signal didn’t always work. “So we decided we needed photographs of specific plants or the vegetable garden or

whatever, in addition to the Zoom meeting,” West says.

The Frederick team shared the procedure with the Charles County Bay-Wise team, who did virtual certifications last fall. “I sent [homeowners] the application to fill out,” explains Rose Markham, co-chair for the Charles County committee. “Then I asked them to submit anywhere from three to six high-definition photos and to fill out the Yardstick to tell me what they are already doing.”

In Queen Anne’s County, “we’re doing it via Facetime,” says Rachel Rhodes, “and having the homeowner complete the Yardstick ahead of time.”

The Bay-Wise Yardstick is downloadable from the UMD Extension website and includes the number of inches each step confers (5" for simply not fertilizing the

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Nancy Taylor Robson was one of the first American women to earn a USCG coastal tug license. When not writing books, the Eastern Shore author gardens, sails, and swats mosquitoes.

Bay-Wise Buyer’s Guide Look for native plants that will thrive in the sun and soil conditions you have.

Sun lovers need at least six hours of direct sunlight per day. Purple coneflower, beautiful Joe Pye weed, swamp milkweed (for monarch butterflies), blackeyed Susan (Maryland’s state flower), star boltonia, and goldenrod are all sun lovers.

Shade or dappled-shade lovers, including dogwood (Virginia’s state flower), columbine, jack-in-the-pulpit, trout lily, and most native ferns could get a novice gardener started, but there are hundreds of exciting natives that offer landscape beauty, spring-to-fall food, shelter, and habitat.

Most independent garden centers stock the most-requested regional native plants and have knowledgeable staff to help with consultations. (Box stores sometimes stock natives, but the plant knowledge isn’t always there).

Native plant societies in each state list natives along with their cultivation needs. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat and Conservation Landscaping: Chesapeake Bay Watershed is a terrific resource with over 400 color photos of plants, their cultivation, and common and Latin names. It also has some suggested collections of plants for specific areas: Plants for Bogs, Plants for Wet Meadows, Plants for Dry Meadows, and Plants for Woodlands.

Your local extension office can set up a Bay-Wise consultation. For more resources, visit chesapeakebaymagazine.com/bay-wise.

May 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

RACHEL RHODES, HORTICULTURE EDUCATOR AND MASTER GARDENER COORDINATOR FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND EXTENSION IN QUEEN ANNE’S COUNTY

lawn!), so owners can figure out how close they are to certification before the consultation.

While technology enables the Bay-Wise mission to go forth (and maybe even multiply), Boley says the preliminary consultations—which tend to be detailed, especially for new or inexperienced gardeners— are a bit more challenging to do virtually. “We like to lay eyes on a property, but that’s not always possible,” she says. “We’ve viewed a property from the sidewalk or walk by or drive by, and then called the homeowner and given them the opportunity to show pictures on their phone, or take and mail pictures of the backyard.”

As with all things technological, it works, mostly.

Identifying plants and landscapes from the images on a phone or from slightly out-of-focus photos is not as easy as being there.

“Now that we’re getting more photos instead of hard samples, you realize how terrible people are at taking photos,” Boley laughs.

Regardless of the minor headaches, the technology makes continuing the program possible. “It’s nice for our volunteers to have that opportunity without endangering themselves,” says Boley.

Additionally, with this adaptation, Bay-Wise consultants from one county can now certify properties in counties that don’t have a Bay-Wise Committee. That has helped to relieve some of the backlog of applications for Bay-Wise consultations.

“It’s an amazing program,” says Markham. “Once people get into it, they really love it!” h

33

ON BOATS

Pathfinder 2600 TRS

A bay boat for anglers and family fun—by Capt. John Page Williams

I

“

t’s a fun boat to run,” said Brad Herndon, Sales Manager at Gloucester’s Oyster Cove Boatworks, as we eased the blue Pathfinder 2600 TRS up the Ware River to Warehouse Landing on a chilly, end-of-winter day.

“What makes it fun?” I asked. “It’s quick and agile,” Brad replied. That’s an interesting choice of words for a hardcore fish boat designed also to serve families comfortably. Trust Pathfinder, the bay boat division of the Maverick

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ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 34

May 2021

Boat Group, to meet high standards in each of those categories, all in the same model.

But wait. Low-freeboard bay boats aren’t safe in the Chesapeake, are they? Well, odds are that no one who says so has ever run one. One of my first experiences with them, more than 20 years ago, involved navigating short, breaking 5- to 6-foot seas at the mouths of inlets in Florida. Running at slow planing speeds, the boat simply rose to crest the waves, slid down their backs,

and rose again to the next ones. No spray came aboard, but if it had, it would have flowed overboard through the self-bailing cockpit. The boat? A Pathfinder 2200.

Chesapeake Bay Magazine has reviewed several capable bay boats in the past few years: Boston Whaler’s 270 Dauntless, Regulator’s 26XO and 24XO, and Robalo’s Cayman 246. This is our first Pathfinder, and we’re glad to find the brand finally beginning to take hold in the lower Chesapeake. Upper Bay

anglers should take note as well.

The point of the bay boat design is to put an able hull with moderate deadrise for shallow draft under a cockpit built for anglers. It allows light tackle and fly anglers to fish all but the shallowest water, while still running out into open water safely on all but the nastiest days. That’s not a bad way to fish rockfish, speckled trout, red drum, cobia, and almost any other species between the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and the Susquehanna Flats.

The bay boat formula has always called for a center console, fore-andaft casting decks, the aforementioned seaworthy hull form with self-bailing cockpit, trim tabs for taking full advantage of the hull shape, plenty of storage, ample rod racks, and livewells for carrying baitfish. More recent additions have been powerful bow-mount electric motors with remote control, T-tops, transom jackplates for shallow running, electric shallow-water anchors, and even a tower (second, elevated steering station) for sight-fishing red drum and cobia.

Bay boat anglers have found plenty of family uses for their skiffs, whether towing skis, boards, and tubes, or taking trips to favored beaches. More recently, builders have added serious family features, including low-profile side rails that offer safety without creating windage or snagging lines, snap-on sun pads for bow decks, removable cockpit tables, large consoles for changing rooms with toilets, a pair of lift-up seat backs that turn the bow deck into matching lounges port/ starboard, seating for up to ten

people, and a twin-stepped hull that contributes the speed with agility.

Brad Herndon’s “fun boat”, the 2600 TRS (Third Row Seating), includes all of the above, designed using the experiences of Pathfinder’s design team (all serious anglers), dealers, guides, and customers. It’s the full

STEM TO STERN (TOP) Deep storage for gear or rods on the foredeck; (BOTTOM) TRS stands for third-row seating (with livewells behind).

May 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

35

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package, a hardcore fishing boat suited to nearly every Chesapeake fishery, and a safe, comfortable family day boat as well.

As a brand, Pathfinder evolved out of the Maverick Boat Company’s original Florida “flats-andbackcountry skiff” brands, Hewes and Maverick, in the 1990s. (The company also acquired the Cobia brand in the 2000s). Pathfinder aimed specifically for anglers along the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts who fished shallow areas but needed to run bigger water part of the time. The running bottom of the 2200, at the time the brand’s largest model, was born of the longest Maverick and Hewes models, but with a roomier, deeper cockpit for fishing in rougher water. Since then, it has become a favorite of tournament anglers and fly/light tackle guides up and down the coasts. Pathfinder has expanded the size range to seven models from the 2005 to the 2700, while improving hull design, construction techniques, and specific features.

Five of the models, including the 2600 TRS, incorporate HPS (High Performance Step) hulls built light but strong with Pathfinder’s

proprietary VARIS (Vacuum Assisted Resin Infusion System) integrated construction technique. VARIS helps the 2600 TRS weigh in anywhere from 500 to 1,500 lbs. lighter than comparable boats from other manufacturers, which certainly contributes to its speed and agility.

(There are pros and cons to weight in a bay boat, so it pays to sea-trial several before investing in one to see what you like best for your purposes.)

The twin hull steps on each side of the bottom draw in air that mixes with the water to provide a slippery cushion that reduces friction and increases speed.

Our day on Mobjack Bay didn’t offer enough seas to test the 2600 TRS to the extreme, but there were enough waves to see it could carve them open at speeds beyond what I’m used to running. With its sturdy Yamaha F300 turning 6,000 rpm, the steps drawing in a cushion of air, and the hull trimmed to let the sharp forefoot do its work, the boat turned in a two-way average of 44.9 knots, burning 26.9 gph. The boat held plane easily at 17 knots (3,300 rpm), assisted by engine trim, tabs, and jackplate height adjustments. The

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most efficient cruise we saw was at 30 knots (4,000 rpm, 11.8 gph). Our test boat held tight in sharp turns, thanks to painstaking design of the steps, strakes, and chines. Stability at rest while drifting was excellent, making this wide hull a great platform for any mission from jigging trips to days on race committee.

A boat like the 2600 TRS that does so many things well is going to cost a dollar or two. To be worth the investment, it had better hold together for the long haul. If there’s a catch to a do-everything boat, it’s complexity. Between livewells, jackplate, trim tabs, hatches with hinges and latches, bow-mount electric motor, batteries, stereo, VHF, chartplotter/fishfinder, and toilet, there’s a lot of plumbing, wiring, and other stuff to keep up with. The Maverick Boat Company recognizes this reality, building long-lasting, easy-to-maintain boats with good access to all operating systems.

In videos on Pathfinder’s website, you can see the 2600 TRS in action, plus learn more about its design and fishing capabilities. You’ll come away from the videos with assurance that Pathfinder builds its boats to serve their people well for years. Welcome to the Chesapeake!

Base MSRP for the Pathfinder 2600 TRS with a Yamaha F300 is $112,887, according to the BUILD section on the website. Desirable options like a hardtop, stereo, electronics, a bow mount electric motor with batteries and charger, and head with pumpout will take the MSRP toward $150,000. For more information, visit pathfinderboats. com. h CBM Editor at Large, educator, guide, and author of three quintessential Chesapeake Bay books, John Page Williams was named a Maryland Admiral of the Bay in 2013.

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ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

39

once upon our time

DICK GOERTEMILLER

by Jody Argo schroath

Fifty years in, we look back at Bay boating’s big picture.

Come on aboard!

Y

ou have probably already figured out that this May marks the 50th anniversary of Chesapeake Bay Magazine.

What you may not know is that its founding reflects how we were boating, where we were going, and how we got there.

Back in the early 1970s, there were fewer recreational boats out on the Bay, especially cruising-style boats. These tended to be smaller than today’s cruisers, both sail and power. After all, in the 1970s, people were sailing around the world in 26to 30-foot boats. In fact, famous world cruisers Lynn and Larry Pardee’s boat Serraffyn was only 24 feet. Today, according to local brokers I’ve spoken with, many novice couples start out with at least a 40-foot boat. You or your parents (or—ahem—your grandparents), on the other hand, were likely to find a boat under 30 feet a comfortable sufficiency.

If it was a sailboat (and there were a lot more sailboats around then), it might easily have been a nice O’Day 22 or perhaps a sleek Tartan 27. Mine in those days was a Paceship PY23, bright yellow and lovely to cruise in. I would love to have had a Bay-built boat like a Dickerson, which for many years were manufactured off the Choptank River. Many Dickersons are still sailing today, and a number have been around the world. If it were a powerboat, on the other hand, in the 1970s it might have been a Bertram 31. Maybe it was even a Chris Craft cabin cruiser like the Commander 35.

The Bay’s cruising community tended to venture out in packs then.

Boat clubs and yacht clubs up and down the Bay were extremely

May 2021

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41

DESTINATION FUN Spectating log canoe races

ROBERT DE GAST (COLLECTION OF CHESAPEAKE BAY MARITIME MUSEUM-CBMM)

on the Miles in 1970

popular, and the monthly cruise was eagerly subscribed. It meant that somebody in the club probably had been there already, knew the best route, and how to get safely in.

Club members clamored for new places to go.

And where did they go?

Anchorages mostly, most of them the same favorites we still have. If an anchorage is crowded today, it was probably also a busy place in the 1970s. You know them. The Wye River, for example, where in the ’70s you could still dip a net overboard and come up with half a dozen big crabs. And Worton Creek, of course.

Worton has been popular since at least the 1890s, when George and Robert Barrie of Philadelphia extolled its beauties in The Rudder Magazine. Where else? Dun Cove off the Choptank River and Cacaway Island off the Chester River. The Severn Islands. Horseshoe Bend on the St. Marys River and Sandy Point on the Great Wicomico. Little Bay on Fleets Bay, Onancock Creek on the Eastern Shore, and Oldhouse Creek on the Ware. I could fill a book.

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 42

May 2021

What about today’s favorite destinations, like St. Michaels, Solomons, Rock Hall, Deltaville, and Onancock? Well, in the 1970s they had yet to reach destination status, though of course cruisers stopped by, especially at Oxford and Annapolis, as well as Fort Monroe.

But they generally anchored out rather than take a slip. In the 1970s, St. Michaels, Solomons, and the rest were only just beginning to make the change from working fishing villages to charming former working fishing villages, and eventually to what we have today: charming former working fishing villages turned attractive modern cruising centers. The transition for two of these towns began in the 1970s with the founding of their maritime museums—Chesapeake Maritime Museum in St. Michaels and Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons. In fact, cruisers to the Patuxent River were likely to sail past Solomons and head upriver to Vera’s White Sands Beach Club, where Vera herself might dive off the docks and swim out to an anchored boat with a welcoming hibiscus.

Rock Hall, in the 1970s, was still occupied with tonging oysters and clamming. Rock Hall’s harbor wasn’t dredged to allow access by deeper-draft vessels until 1980.

Baltimore’s time as a recreational boating center was also in the future. The Inner Harbor wasn’t developed until the 1980s. And Hampton and Norfolk didn’t open their museums and redevelop their waterfront until the 1990s.

Overall there were not nearly as many marinas in the 1970s as there are now, especially marinas that provided space for transients and flocks of visitors like cruising clubs.

But all that was about to change.

Beginning in the latter part of the 1970s and into the 1980s, the Bay virtually exploded with marina construction. New slips sprouted like duckweed. It’s a good bet that your marina today got its start in one of those decades. These new marinas had solid docks with 30amp power and clubhouses with showers for slipholders and visitors.

With the addition of pools and restaurants, marinas became resort destinations in themselves.

ROBERT DE GAST (COLLECTION OF CBMM)

A DIFFERENT TIME (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Vera, of Vera’s White Sands Beach Club; in the 1970s, people sailed around the world dedicates the Hooper Straight Lighthouse.

WILLIAM E. BOOTH, ROBERT H. BURGESS COLLECTION OF CBMM

in 26- to 30-foot boats.; Robert H. Burgess

HIKING OUT Log canoe Mary J. Hall under sail to weather with crew on springboards;

ROBERT DE GAST (COLLECTION OF CHESAPEAKE BAY MARITIME MUSEUM-CBMM)

Annapolis Boat Show

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45

T

DICK GOERTEMILLER

he 1970s and 1980s were a watershed period (if you’ll pardon the expression) for recreational boating on the Chesapeake. New marinas, new dealerships, new boats, new boaters—it was very exciting! The first Annapolis boat show was held in 1970. And in 1971, Dick and Dixie Goertemiller, a young couple from Virginia who had fallen in love with cruising on the Chesapeake, decided to start a magazine dedicated to just that. From the beginning, Chesapeake Bay Magazine featured destinations, recipes, how-to boating tips, boat reviews, and what was to be their

most popular feature: Cruise of the Month. Each month, Dick and Dixie would write about one of their recent cruises. Dick would add his own watercolors and often even painted a map to go along with the story. One month Dick and Dixie might write about an idyllic anchorage on the Wye River’s Dividing Creek, and the next a trip up the Great Wicomico River to Coles Creek.

This was just what the cruising and yacht clubs were looking for: a new destination each month, with the sailing instructions built right in.

Before long, the magazine’s Cruises of the Month were so popular that it

was commonly agreed it was better to wait a month or two before going because it was sure to be jampacked right after that month’s publication.

These were not glossy, everything-is-always-rosy stories, something other cruisers appreciated. They were fun, but practical. One month, Dick described their recent cruise into the Little Choptank River. Arriving after dark and in a squall, the couple decided rather desperately to try the first creek, Brooks, rather than the second (deeper) Hudson Creek. They immediately ran hard aground. With Dixie holding a

DICK GOERTEMILLER

flashlight at the helm, Dick jumped overboard in the dark and pouring rain and hauled the boat over the shoal and into deeper water, where they finally could drop the anchor.

There was no rush to Brooks Creek the following month.

These cruises were how the Guide to Cruising Chesapeake Bay got its start. A couple of years after the magazine began, clubs and other cruisers asked the Goertemillers to publish a collection of the Cruises of the Month so they could have them all in one place.

They did, and for the first few years of its existence, that is just what the Guide was. In the decades that followed, the Guide was filled in a bit at a time until it covered the whole Bay.

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he Bay has also added a few new cruising destinations over the years: National Harbor, for example, or re-imagined destinations like D.C.’s Wharf and The Yards. We’ve lost a few places, too—not towns, of course, but popular anchorages. For example, Dymer Creek’s Grog Island, for generations a popular Northern Neck party spot, quite simply does not exist now. Oh, it’s still on the charts, but in real life, it’s not there.

Consider too the Rhode River’s diminishing island trio of High, Big and Flat. They are all going, but ironically, it is High Island that is the most gone of all. Finally, we have lost access to a lot of creeks that were once busy with trade and industry, because their entrances,

or the creeks themselves, have shoaled in. The Coast Guard has been steadily pulling out their navigation markers at such creeks all over the Bay. Shoaling in brings us to depth-sounders and to the equipment we had on our boats, then and now, to keep us comfortable and out of trouble.

Most Bay cruising boats in the 1970s came equipped with a box refrigerator, a head of some kind (probably a portable), maybe a propane stove, and a sink with a fresh and saltwater foot pump. No air conditioning, of course, and probably not a shower. No chart plotters. Navigation was by chart, memory, or chance—usually a version of all three. After all, it was

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easy to remember where the shoals were after your keel had stuck to them like a toothpicked hors d’oeuvre a few times. Alternatively, you could sound your way into a creek or an anchorage with the dinghy or toss a lead-line off the bow as you went. A depth-sounder was a plus, of course, and some cruising boats had them.

Today, of course, nearly every boat bigger than a bread box has a depth finder. It still doesn’t keep us from running aground—we’ll always push our limits or cut this point or that too short—but it does give us a better chance if we see the bottom coming up sharp.

Let me be the first to say I applaud the things we have in 2021 that we didn’t in the 1970s. Most of

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us still can’t run our air conditioning at anchor without a generator, but when we’re tied up at that slip after a hot day on the water, we can plug in and kick back in comfort. At anchor or in a marina, we can pull a cold can of beer or soft drink from our refrigerator. And we can wash off the day’s salt-spray in our own showers. We can cook or grill in comfort, almost as if we were home. We have TV, the Internet, a cell signal. Heck, we even have Netflix; it all comes along with us.

And because the line between our boats and our homes has become less distinct, some boaters were able to self-isolate, work, and cruise last summer during the pandemic.

When it comes to practical features, there are almost too many to mention. Roller-furling jibs and mast-furling mains. Bow thrusters for everyone. Bigger engines that are more efficient, quieter, and more reliable. Chart plotters the size of TVs to tell us where we are and sonar sounders to read the bottom as we go. Radar to see in fog. AIS to see ships in the dark and emergency markers that aren’t really there. We have smart tablets with inexpensive navigation programs that update weekly and talk to everything on the boat but

the dog. We have chart programs that can overlay Army Corps of Engineers soundings and apps that tell us about new places to anchor.

The family dinghy has been joined by kayaks, SUPs, and inflatable swans the size of a houseboats. It’s mind-boggling, or it would be if it hadn’t all been coming on a bit at a time.

Marinas have been changing too. They are reconfiguring slips and finger piers for bigger boats and making them wider to accommodate the growing number of catamarans. And many are now sponsoring boat clubs, where would-be boaters can get experience before they buy.

Today the range of boats by size, age, and amenities is greater than it has ever been. By the 1970s, nearly all boatbuilders had switched to fiberglass, which means that today a 50-year-old Tartan 27 and a 1978 Mainship 34 can easily be found sharing dock space with a 1980s Grand Banks and a 1990s Beneteau. And that means that, in a sense, the 1970s never left the Bay; it just made room for everyone else.

The same kinds of changes can be seen in non-cruising boats.

Paddlecraft and small outboards have always made up the lion’s

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share of boats. And they still do.

Canoes may have become lighter over the years, but it’s the versatile kayak that has been dominating the market for the past 20 years. Now kayaks themselves are facing stiff competition from stand-up paddleboards, which are filling our local creeks like so many Canada geese. SUPs are eminently portable, easy to learn, and fun to use. Who can argue?

Trailer boats have also changed. They are leaner, faster, considerably bigger, and significantly more expensive. But you’re likely to see many of the same manufacturers, like GradyWhite, Boston Whaler, and Chris-Craft. And the variety has proliferated, with bow riders, deck boats, walkarounds, center consoles, and more. All of that means that what was once used exclusively as a fishing boat in the 1970s and 1980s has expanded in the 2020s to be a family boat.

Families are seeing more of the Bay by driving to new areas and then launching their boat for a day of exploration and an anchorage with a cool swim.

Finally, sailboat racing has always been a key part of the Bay’s boating life. From class boats like the Oxford 400 and Chesapeake 20

to big boats racing in the Governor’s Cup and Screwpile, its role can’t be minimized.

Wednesday Night Races, Frostbite, Beer Can, Schooner— it’s like poetry, and it deserves a history all its own.

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here does all this leave us, 50 years in? As a person who has been boating on the Chesapeake in every one of those decades, I believe it leaves us in remarkable shape. More people than ever are getting out on the water in more different ways than ever before. Free access to the Bay is remarkable. Our extraordinary collection of waterways is open to everyone. We can boat pretty much anywhere we want, and we can drop anchor anywhere we are not in the way. And we can be happy doing it in a kayak or a 100-foot superyacht. (We’d just better have a good depth finder on the superyacht.) The first time I ever went out on the Bay, it was with friends on their 25-foot sailboat. I thought it was wonderful. I still do. h CBM Cruising Editor Jody Argo Schroath, with the help and not infrequent hindrance of ship’s dogs Bindi and Sammy, goes up and down bays, rivers and creeks in search of adventure and stories.

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I

n the 1980s, a Washington, DC real estate developer became a frequent visitor to Rock Hall, MD and purchased what is now known as Haven Harbour Marina Resorts.

The marina William Brawner bought in 1986 featured just a few piers and sat on half the acreage it sits on today.

Celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, Haven Harbour has grown to include 350 slips and encompass 22 acres.

Family owned and operated by the Brawner family, Haven Harbour has become a resort destination.

Now divided into two marinas — the original marina located on

Swan Creek and Haven Harbour South on Rock Hall Harbor — it features a bar and grill; in-house yacht services and an inn for overnight guests.

Haven Harbour Marina Resorts is the largest employer in Rock Hall and the Brawner family commitment to the Kent County community is evident.

The family oversaw the development of a Victorian-style neighborhood across from the marina as well as a charming area along the town’s Main Street.

The Haven Harbour management team recognized that area watermen needed a dedicated center to record their history.

Teaming up with neighbors, a nearby home was converted to a museum space featuring exhibits on oystering, crabbing and fishing. A reproduction of a historic shanty house is on display, featuring historical photos and local carvings.

35 years ago, William Brawner was captivated by the relaxed, uncomplicated lifestyle he found along the water. The family remains dedicated to preserving that way of life — and sharing it with you.

EARLY RISER Lifelong

Annapolis

waterman

Louis

ph otog r aphs

Cantler, crab potting in Whitehall Bay

by jay fleming

near the mouth of the Severn River.

Transformation Tradition

&

50 years in the Chesapeake’s iconic fisheries by kate livie

M

uch of the Chesapeake’s powerful charm comes from its air of timelessness.

Deadrises leave their slips before sunrise, catching crabs the way the last generation did, and the generations before that. Skipjacks, mud frozen to their winter decks, come into dock weighed down by the heft of hundreds upon hundreds of oysters to be shucked, packed, and shipped.

Yet these seemingly unchanged cultural touchstones are deceptive.

The last 50 years have spelled tremendous transformation for the Chesapeake’s iconic fisheries. That so much remains of the Bay’s traditional ways speaks to the grit, determined stewardship, and conservation efforts of the people who call this place home.

The 1970s was in many ways the last of a golden era for Bay fisheries, begun when 20th-century fisheries diversified and the industry boomed. Watermen returning from World War II had come back to a bountiful Bay. The oyster bars were replenished and tributaries were clear, with vast eelgrass meadows that sheltered a plentiful supply of

crabs. The oystering outlook was so rosy that new skipjacks were commissioned: Lady Katie, Rosie Parks, and other wooden working girls, all love letters to the Bay’s traditional fisheries.

After Hurricane Agnes sent a huge wall of mud and debris plummeting into the Chesapeake’s main stem in the late spring of 1972, billions of eggs from spawning fish were ejected from protective headwaters, sediment blanketed underwater grass beds, and more than half of the oysters north of the Bay Bridge were killed in the desalinated water. It was the watershed’s watershed moment, and an event the maritime communities of the Chesapeake still talk about five decades later.

As the Chesapeake began to recover from Agnes, the foundation was being laid for another transformational event. As part of the popular Chesapeake seed initiative, where productive oyster spat was moved from thriving oyster regions to struggling ones, Virginia oysters had long been relocated to Maryland tributaries. But some of the Virginia oysters carried new diseases from outside the watershed—tiny hitchhikers from Louisiana and Delaware oysters, brought in from out of state in the late ’40s and ’50s.

These two diseases, MSX and Dermo, spread from oyster to oyster in high-salinity waters. The first hit was in the ’50s and ’60s, as Virginia’s stocks were crippled by first Dermo, then MSX, plummeting from 40 million pounds per year to 20 million in a decade. Meanwhile, Maryland’s oyster seed program continued, moving infected oysters from Virginia north to Maryland, under the assumption that Maryland waters were too fresh for the disease

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to spread. That assumption would prove terribly wrong, but a decade would pass before the Maryland oyster industry felt its impact.

Although disease was eroding the Chesapeake’s once-legendary oyster populations, the ’80s was a heady time for the blue crab harvest.

Approximately 9,000 watermen plied the Chesapeake’s summertime waterways in 1980, hauling in 62 million pounds of beautiful swimmers to meet the region’s insatiable clamor for crabs. Like oystering, crabbing was largely unchanged from the early 20th century, although wooden deadrises were more often built in fiberglass and pricey salted eel was replaced by razor clams for bait. Packing houses were still staffed by local, mostly Black laborers. Crisfield alone had 400 crab pickers—mostly African-American women—in 1980, making $1.15 for every pound of crabmeat they picked.

The importance of the fishery was conveyed in new scientific efforts to track and manage the crab population, which before then had tended to rise and fall in littleunderstood cycles. The first reporting of commercial crab landings started in 1981, with Virginia following over a decade later in 1993. It was an example of how the two states often differed on resource management such as crabs despite sharing the same Bay.

JUMBO LUMP LEGACY Nicey Jones picked crabs at J.M. Clayton Seafood Company in Cambridge, Md. for 66 years before retiring in 2014. J.M. Clayton is the oldest crab picking house in the world and has been operated by the same family for five generations.

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CHANGING THE OYSTER GAME (TOP) A bouy indicating that the bottom is leased for oyster aquaculture at the Hoopers Island Oyster Company facility near the mouth of Fishing Creek on the Honga River.

(BOTTOM) Bubba Parker, an employee of Choptank Oyster Company in Cambridge, Md., tends to floating oyster cages in the Choptank River. Choptank Oyster Company was founded in 1996, one of the first aquaculture companies in the state of Maryland to raise oysters in cages. Earlier aquaculture operations raised oysters on the bottom outside of cages.

The creation of a Baywide crab survey in 1989 was remarkable, in light of this “I’ll go my way, you go yours” approach. In 1989, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and the University of Maryland Chesapeake Biological Lab worked together to launch the survey. Using an old Virginia method for harvesting overwintering crabs, the surveyors used a special dredge to pull hibernating crabs up from the Bay’s bottom to be measured, counted, and thrown back. Working from December through March on

locations throughout the Bay, the dredge survey provided a snapshot of the crab population’s health and its breeding stock.

Crabs eclipsed oysters as the Bay’s most valuable fishery by 1983.

But even as crabbing grew in profit and importance, the labor force that powered it was ebbing away. As new generations benefited from increased access to education, seeking employment beyond the Bay’s waterways, the Chesapeake’s traditional packing houses were scrambling for pickers and laborers.

HARD LABOR Steaming crabs at Metompkin Seafood in Crisfield, Md.

The savior came in the form of a federal bill, the H2-B Guest Worker Program, which brought seasonal pickers from Mexico and Central America to the Chesapeake’s crab packing houses.

This new global worldview of the crabbing industry didn’t just extend to crab pickers. Phillips Seafood, which had grown from its early days as a Dorchester County venture to a state-wide crab juggernaut, began to look outside of the Chesapeake for plentiful crabmeat and cheaper labor. The

Phillips family began scouting in Southeast Asia in the 1980s, and by the ’90s had established a new location in the Philippines to harvest, pick, and import the region’s pelagic swimming crabmeat.

Demand boomed, though Phillips would come under fire for being less than transparent about the origins of the lump in their “Maryland-style” crabcakes.

The gambit was so successful that throughout the ’90s Phillips would expand to Vietnam, China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Ecuador,

substantially undercutting the retail cost of Chesapeake crabmeat and transforming the market for the Bay’s crabs along the way.

Even as the crab industry experienced explosive global growth, the Chesapeake’s oyster industry foundered. Several years of drought in the late ’80s and early ’90s raised the Upper Chesapeake’s salinity levels, providing ideal conditions for the MSX and Dermo carried in the Virginia seed oysters to spread. As in Virginia, it proved catastrophic to Maryland’s oyster

harvest. Maryland’s oncemighty annual fishery barely managed a million pounds a year—a drop of 95 percent from the golden era of the ’70s. Virginia’s fishery was equally devastated.

The outlook of the fishery—and the watermen it supported— was bleak.

The solution championed by many in the oyster industry was one that had been used by maritime communities around the world to resuscitate oyster stocks decimated by disease: Introduce a non-native species. Bringing in an Asian oyster, watermen argued, would help the industry rebound.

The Bay’s environmental groups were skeptical. Who knew what issues the introduction of a non58

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TOMORROW’S OYSTERS Oyster seed are examined under a microscope at the Hoopers Island Oyster Company Hatchery.

native oyster might cause in the Chesapeake?

Especially when recent science had suggested that a healthy native oyster population could restore the Bay’s declining water quality.

A scientist at VIMS, Stan Allen, was tasked with researching the issue in 1997. In his lab, he studied the possible introduction of an Asian oyster, attempting to determine if it could withstand the diseases plaguing the native species and potentially save the fishery. What he discovered along the way was that the Bay’s oysters—not a non-native oyster— could resist MSX and Dermo as long as the native oysters were sterile.

IN THE LAB (LEFT) Justin Leonhardt, a former employee of Hoopers Island Oyster Company, examines algae at the company’s hatchery in Crocheron, Md. Algae is used to feed seed oysters during the early stages in their life while they are in tanks at the hatchery.

Once oysters reach a certain size, they are placed in the Bay where they can feed on natural algae.

His hatchery-created, “seedless watermelon” Eastern oyster with three chromosomes, known as a “triploid,” proved to be the solution the Chesapeake’s oyster industry needed. Almost overnight, triploids were embraced by Virginia’s oystering industry, which had long ago adopted aquaculture, first for oysters and later for cherrystone clams. Virginia’s oyster farmers set to raising hatchery triploids in force.

The triploid oyster provided less immediate relief for Maryland. The

state had rejected large-scale aquaculture in the early 20th century, favoring the use of antiquated harvesting methods like dredging under sail to manage the fishery. There was simply no precedent. In the hopes of saving the oyster industry and restoring oyster habitat in one fell swoop, Maryland’s then-governor Martin O’Malley announced a new plan in 2009 to legally pave the way for Maryland oyster farmers. The bill simultaneously closed 25 percent of

Maryland’s most historically productive oyster beds to wild harvest, designating oyster sanctuaries where reefs would be created to encourage spat, oyster growth, and the bivalve’s natural water-filtering power.

The 21st century development of the Chesapeake’s oyster aquaculture industry created a new Bay stakeholder, practically overnight. The establishment of new oyster farms and a new industry led to conflict. Oyster farmers and

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watermen navigated issues over leasing rights to the Bay’s bottom and tussled over the literal entanglement of gear. Some landowners didn’t appreciate the hundreds of floating or bottom oyster cages that became part of their waterfront vistas. And crabbers complained about their crab pots being snagged on the jagged, newlybuilt oyster reefs within the Maryland sanctuaries.

But it also created a new oyster fishery, one that supplied top-tier raw bars with oysters on the half shell, employing a new kind of Chesapeake oysterman.

From oyster disease to the development of oyster aquaculture, from mostly-local crab to a globalized industry, the

Standing the test of time

Chesapeake’s two biggest fisheries have adapted and thrived. The crab harvest is remarkably well-managed and resilient, and breakthroughs in science have provided a greater understanding of the ebb and flow of their populations. Though the Bay’s wild oyster populations continue to struggle, oyster aquaculture has diversified the industry while sanctuaries provide an opportunity to explore the environmental power of a robust oyster reef.

There are still challenges—to the labor struggles of the crab industry and their access to migrant workers, to the wild oyster populations, which continue to decline—but the Chesapeake’s centuries-old traditional fisheries

remain. Their skipjacks and oyster cages, draketails and trotlines define our sense of place on the Bay. What the next 50 years will bring is unknowable, but one thing is certain—in this moment, they persist, in a beautiful tapestry of time, environment, culture and tradition. Oysters and crabs, a simple common language shared on the waterways and the dinner table. The lifeblood of us Chesapeake people.

Kate Livie is a Chesapeake writer, educator, and historian. An Eastern Shore native and current faculty at Washington College’s Center for Environment and Society, Livie’s award-winning book Chesapeake Oysters was published in 2015.

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Explore the Chesapeake Country All-American Road: Kent County Style

Celebrating 40 Years of Exceptional Marina Operations & Management

I

n 1977, an architect in Washington, DC left a successful practice to purchase a marina on the Bay. Mitchell Nathanson bought White Rocks Marina on Rock Creek, one of the largest marine facilities in Maryland. Nathanson redeveloped and sold the marina, launching what is now Coastal Properties Management.

“I saw a need in the maritime industry to assist marina and waterfront property owners and buyers by offering consulting and facility management options,” Nathanson says.

Nathanson was also an early advocate and voice for the industry, when there was little representation for the marina owners. He became president of the Marine Trades Association of Maryland in the late 1970s and early 1980s, fighting for fair appraising of marinas in order to lower real estate taxes. The association also helped repeal and control the slip taxes being waged by Anne Arundel County.

Coastal provides management, consulting, redevelopment, construction, sales and purchase brokerage assistance of multi-use waterfront properties, including marinas, hotels, resorts, restaurants and commercial buildings.

Coastal offers management solutions to improve a facility’s financial condition, redevelopment, turn-around and sale or to maintain and manage it for the long term.

In Norfolk, VA, Coastal was selected by an area lender to turn around and sell a large fullservice marina that had been badly neglected and ill managed. Once a proper team was put in place, Coastal managed a complete turn around and facility improvement project within two years, then brokered the sale of the marina at a profit for the client.

Nathanson is the company’s CEO and real estate broker, helping clients sell marinas in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC. Bruce Wagner serves as president, handling operations, including business client acquisition, marketing and hiring.

CURRENTLY MANAGED PROPERTIES: MD: Bowleys Marina, Fort Washington Marina and Spa Creek Marina Condominiums VA: Belmont Bay Harbor Marina, Cutty Sark Marina and Little Creek Marina DC: Capital Yacht Club and Diamond Teague Piers Coastal is a broker for slip leases and sales at Piney Narrows Yacht Haven in Kent Island, Maryland.

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Cleaning up the Bay Fifty Years of the Most Complex Restoration Project Ever Attempted by john page williams

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hile I was thinking about everything our beloved Chesapeake Bay has experienced since Chesapeake Bay Magazine began printing in May 1971, my former Chesapeake Bay Foundation colleague Dr. Robin Tyler posted this reminiscence that embodies the changes of the last half-century, kicked off by Hurricane Agnes in 1972:

When I was a kid growing up in Princess Anne in the 1960s and ’70s, I didn’t know what pollution was. We called our home, the Eastern Shore, God’s Country. I feel fortunate to have grown up where I did, when I did, with whom I did, to do the things I did.

WILL PARSON/CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM

I remember my grandparents in Crisfield having a privy out back and white porcelain buckets indoors for nighttime. I remember the stinking canning house on Mt. Vernon Road you could smell a mile away, and being told to stay away from Steamboat Wharf because that’s where the town sewage came in. But I didn’t get it, because the areas affected around my little part of the world were small. There was so much good fishing and hunting that I ignored it.

As the full effect of Agnes developed in the Chesapeake Bay and the Susquehanna Valley in June 1972, ‘The Scientists’ said it was going to be bad. Like many others, I carried on about how stupid they were, without recognizing what I didn’t know. They got it right. My home waters of Tangier and Pocomoke Sounds have never been the same. That’s why I refer to 1971 as ‘The Last Good Summer’—a story about teenagers with a 16' outboard skiff for whom life couldn’t have been better.

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HARD-WON PROGRESS After 50 years of strengthening policies, the Chesapeake and its tributaries are responding.

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WIKIMEDIA COMMONS; NOAA

The Reckoning

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Agnes was a long-lasting storm that caused catastrophic damage just as America was waking up to environmental issues. The storm occurred while the Chesapeake research community was meeting.

The scientists realized Agnes’ systemic nature and organized investigations to study it even as it wound down. The damage was epic, bringing massive rainfall and runoff to the headwaters of the Chesapeake’s big rivers, from the James in Virginia to the Susquehanna in south-central New York. Pennsylvania was hardest hit by flooding, especially around Wilkes-Barre and Scranton.

Mammoth inflows of sediment buried critical underwater grass beds on the Susquehanna Flats and other parts of the Bay. Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution caused algae blooms and oxygen-depleted dead zones.

Agnes accelerated the Bay’s eutrophication—an excess of rich nutrients in the water, often exacerbated by mistreatment. It is well-documented in everything from farm ponds to massive reservoirs.

Agnes made us realize how much eutrophication could damage an estuary, which acts as a catch basin for its upland rivers. Our Bay was a sitting duck.

The Chesapeake watershed is about 500 miles from the Susquehanna’s headwaters in Otsego Lake by Cooperstown, New York to Virginia Beach, as the goose flies. But with an average depth of just 21 feet, our Bay is a very shallow, settling basin for big rivers draining a vast land. Nearly a quarter of the Bay’s area is less than six feet deep.

In 1971, the watershed was busy carrying on the Industrial Revolution.

The human population had mushroomed from the 50,000 native peoples who were here when colonists arrived to 11 million, with proportional increase in livestock and fossil-fueled machines. Indian trails ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

May 2021

Hurricane Agnes: The I-95 bridge leading into downtown Richmond.

The Susquehanna crests over Wilkes-Barre, Penn.

evolved into interstate highways; pavement was everywhere. The percentage of remaining virgin forest was near zero. Reforestation improved tree cover in the early 20th century, but after the 1950s, population growth gobbled up some of those gains.

With minimal filtering, rain ran quickly down the watershed’s expanses of disturbed soils, concrete, and asphalt to sea level in the shallow Bay. It eroded soil and filled channels,

putting the Chesapeake system on a junk-food diet of fertilizer and soil equivalent to a person eating 15,000 calories a day.

Yes, the water eventually flowed out to the Atlantic, but only after settling into the estuary for months on the way, with accumulated phosphorus and nitrogen growing aquatic algae instead of trees. Agnes brought this predicament into stark relief one year after Chesapeake Bay Magazine began publishing.

“I told you I was sick”

President Nixon studies the

What has happened since is actually a hopeful story. Four months after Agnes roared up the Eastern Seaboard, President Nixon signed the Clean Water Act, which began the long task of cleaning up wastewater pollution. It would take 10 years for treatment upgrades to show results, but industries and municipalities around the Chesapeake deserve credit for their accomplishments.

As scientists were quantifying the damage from Agnes, watermen were struggling with declining harvests.

Rivers around the Chesapeake’s urban areas remained dirty, smelly threats to public health.

Boaters noted fish kills with disturbing frequency. There’s a gravestone on Smith Island inscribed, “I Told You I Was Sick,” which also applies to the Bay’s ecosystem at the start of the 1970s. The signs of the Bay’s decline were there, even though many people dismissed them as “just part of a cycle.”

In 1974, Maryland Senator Charles McCurdy Mathias took a long tour around the Chesapeake, listening to watermen, recreational crabbers and anglers, yachtsmen, scientists, and anyone else with a stake in a healthy Bay. What he found alarmed him enough to push through Congress a seven-year, multi-disciplinary EPA study of the Bay ecosystem, which began in 1976.

The study confirmed that the Chesapeake suffered from significant eutrophication. There was no silver bullet to fix it. Our busy watershed was facing death by a thousand cuts. This made the work particularly challenging, but also offered opportunities. With the nation’s capital in the center of a prosperous six-state region, the cleanup of this historic national treasure presented an experiment in environmental remediation.

flood damage, near Harrisburg, Pa..

The 1980 s The Decade of the Bay The EPA study was the beginning of the federal/state/local Chesapeake Bay Program partnership (CBP). In December 1983, the leaders of Virginia, Maryland, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, the tristate Chesapeake Bay Commission, and the EPA signed the first Chesapeake Bay Agreement to restore the estuary’s health. This marked broad recognition of Pennsylvania’s role; after all, it encompasses more square miles of the Chesapeake watershed than any other jurisdiction.

CBP and its partners began focusing on all the million cuts, diagnosing each injury and crafting cost-effective remedies that added up to larger solutions. General Assembly sessions made 1984 “The Year of the Bay,” with broad legislation to begin the cleanup. The most far-reaching was Maryland’s Critical Area Act, which for the first time officially recognized the role of land use in Bay pollution and began to address this huge, controversial issue. Virginia followed several years later with its

Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act. Public interest and participation in restoring the Bay increased exponentially.

CBP integrated research by university labs with state agencies, local government, nonprofits, and business partners. One early task was to develop a computerized model of the Bay and its watershed, for use in identifying research needs, targeting restoration projects, and most importantly, evaluating results. Thirtyseven years later, this “Bay Model” is arguably the most sophisticated ecosystem simulation in the world.

The scientific community turned out critical findings. Ecosystem modeling showed that reduced light from cloudy water drove the die-off of underwater grasses. That was a product of sediment deposits.

Researchers found reversing the process would require wastewater treatment plants to remove nitrogen as well as the phosphorus they had begun to remove under the Clean Water Act. (Nitrogen is more soluble than phosphorus and thus more difficult—and expensive—to remove.)

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AP PHOTO/CHARLES TASNADI

The 1970 s

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CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM; STEVE DROTER/CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM

The finding was unwelcome, but the science showed the cost of not removing the pollution was higher.

Nitrogen from air pollution also contributed significantly to the Bay’s decline. Fossil fuel combustion from power plants and vehicles produce gases that settle to the ground, where rain washes them overboard. In the late ’80s, the gases were causing as much as a third of the Bay’s nitrogen pollution.

Despite the increased awareness, the Bay’s health continued to decline. Baywide acreage of underwater grasses bottomed out in 1983 and made only slight progress in following years. Oxygen-depleted dead zones caused alarming shifts in fish and crab behavior. A new oyster disease

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ACTS AND AGREEMENTS (TOP) The Chesapeake Executive Council ; (BOTTOM) Power plants discharge smog and toxic heavy metals.

known as Dermo devastated harvests in both Virginia and Maryland. A drought late in the decade produced stagnant water full of ugly brown algae blooms that contributed to oxygen problems

and dirtied boats’ topsides.

Rockfish stocks crashed, leading to a six-year harvest moratorium in Maryland and deep harvest cuts plus closures in Virginia.

There were silver linings. The rockfish crisis led to new management and increased research. In 1987, the Bay Program, Bay Commission, Bay states, and District signed a new Bay Agreement, setting a specific 40 percent goal for nitrogen reduction by 2000. Wastewater phosphorus control and a ban on it in laundry detergents reduced freshwater algae growth, and the upper tidal rivers rebounded, especially the Potomac around Washington and the James below Richmond. Seeing progress was a tonic, a sign that “yes, we might get this done.”

Good Intentions, Their Limits, and a Mysterious Microbe With the nitrogen goal, the Bay states developed cost-effective advanced wastewater treatment.

Federal Clean Air Act Amendments reduced airborne nitrogen oxides and other pollutants from cars, trucks, and power plants. Ecosystem modeling advanced, thanks to the Internet.

Rockfish recruitment (youngof-year survival) improved. In October 1990, Maryland reopened harvest for anglers and watermen on a short, strictly controlled basis.

The years 1993 and 1996 produced strong recruitment, a wonderful morale booster. In 1995, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) declared the fishery

recovered, though all harvests continued under tight control.

With oyster stocks brutally low in the ’90s, Bay scientists experimented with restoration.

Elevated shell reefs in the Piankatank showed promise. So did hatching larvae in hatcheries and growing them in floating cages. The technique evolved into off-bottom aquaculture systems for commercial aquaculture, recreational “oyster gardening,” and reef restoration.

In the summer of 1997, fish kills and an associated, mysterious human disease caused a crisis on several rivers of Maryland’s lower Eastern Shore. Scientists traced it to a rare alga called Pfiesteria. One waterman remarked, “I’ve been studying it on the Internet. Best I can figure, we find out what makes it mad and stop doing it.”

What made it mad turned out to be the agricultural runoff that was unregulated by the Clean Water Act—concentrated animal feeding operations, including poultry. This issue was hard. The farm community, original stewards of the soil, felt stabbed in the back. It took a lot of grievance-airing, careful research that blended cutting-edge agricultural science with ecosystem modeling, and respectful conversation to implement viable cost-share programs that reduce pollution while keeping farms profitable.

Farmers, universities, state and federal agencies, conservationists, and agricultural consultants all deserve credit for cooperating on the issue. The Chesapeake, however, needed many more farmers to work with them, especially in Pennsylvania.

CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM

The 1990 s

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MATT RATH/CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM

The 1990s were hopeful. In 1998, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation issued its first biennial State of the Bay Report. Setting a baseline of 100 using Captain John Smith’s observations of the Chesapeake in his 1607-09 explorations, CBF scientists pegged the Bay’s low point at a score of 23 in 1983. In 1998, the score was a modest but encouraging 27.

Rockfish were the big success story, but there were other improvements, including a rebound in underwater grass beds.

But Baywide nitrogen reductions were nowhere near the year 2000 goal of 40 percent. Good intentions had produced real progress, but not enough. It was time for an ambitious Chesapeake Bay Agreement to mark the new millennium. The Chesapeake Bay Commission and the Bay Program took the lead on developing Chesapeake 2000, with many partners.

The Clean Water Act supplied a crucial provision. It required any water body federally declared impaired by pollution to have a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), essentially a “pollution diet” strict enough to remove the impairment within a specific time frame or face sanctions. No one had ever tried to build a TMDL for such a large ecosystem as the Bay watershed.

Nevertheless, the environmental community and the EPA pushed to obey the law. Chesapeake 2000 struck a compromise: The Bay states and the District would do enough to remove the Chesapeake from the impaired waters list by 2010 voluntarily; if they missed the goal, they would build a pollution diet with the teeth of enforcement provisions.

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SLOWING THE FLOW A rain garden at the U.S. Naval Academy

The 2000 s Progress Accelerates, & the Chesapeake Responds The year 2003 saw wastewater treatment upgrades in Virginia and Maryland. Maryland added an annual fee for every household, bringing huge improvements to both metropolitan areas and smaller jurisdictions such as Salisbury and Easton. Virginia opted to allocate its budget annually over a series of decades, adding budgetary surpluses under an innovative Water Quality Improvement Act. Those measures have produced improvements from Hampton Roads to Lynchburg and Alexandria.

Progress remained slow in Pennsylvania, despite many

impaired streams in a commonwealth that prizes its freeflowing waters for their own sake as well as proximity to the Bay. There were bright spots in the farm community, including Amish and Mennonite operations.

In the Bay and its rivers, algae blooms and dead zones continued, but so did improvements. Because this huge system operates every day in dynamic balance between tides, moon, sun, wind, and freshwater stream inflow, one-day snapshots aren’t reliable. Understanding it takes scientific gear and analysis over time. The watershed model at the Bay Program documented the improvements in public reports like Bay Barometer. Rockfish remained

2010-2021 Progress Accelerates, & Our Bay Shows It

strong, and the bi-state crab management program continued adjusting harvests consistent with the winter dredge survey.

Oyster reef restoration and aquaculture grew, while research documented disease tolerance evolving in wild stocks, especially in the Rappahannock. Citizens of the Bay Country fell in love with Chesapeake oysters for their value as reef-building ecosystem engineers and water filters, not just as meals.

By 2008, though, it was apparent we would not meet the Chesapeake 2000 goals by 2010. Several environmental and watermen’s organizations sued the EPA to enforce the TMDL. The

lawsuit attracted furious opposition from the National Farm Bureau Federation and several national partners, who feared the TMDL would set a difficult precedent. In 2009, President Obama issued an Executive Order directing the EPA to implement the pollution diet.

The lawsuit succeeded. The scientists at the Chesapeake Bay Program set a pollution diet to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment, reaching into every nook and cranny of the watershed. For the first time, the other three states with land in the Chesapeake watershed—West Virginia, New York, and Delaware—signed on to the Bay Agreement’s water quality elements.

Now the Bay cleanup has a new pollution diet deadline: 2025.

There are two-year benchmarks to measure progress. EPA has enforcement powers over the states, who rely on local government because of the pollution diet’s specific nature. Federal, state, and local must all work in partnership.

There are many moving parts, and there are periodic needs to play hardball to keep things moving.

Pennsylvania in particular has had a difficult time finding funding to fulfill its commitments.

There is a new focus on urban/ suburban stormwater pollution running off impervious surfaces, such as roadways, parking lots, and rooftops. Fixing this cumulative abuse is arguably the greatest challenge we face, reaching literally into each of our homes, no matter where we live. Dealing with our own stormwater is the inescapable embodiment of Pogo Possum’s dictum, “We have Met the Enemy, and He is Us.” It’s difficult, expensive, and disruptive to help this watershed catch rain resourcefully again. The silver linings, though, are new business opportunities and jobs for civil engineers, landscape architects, contractors, and laborers to build cost-effective solutions from Cooperstown to Virginia Beach, and the improvements neighborhood streams and creeks show as we turn them from trash dumps to live elements of the Chesapeake system.

Under that tightly accountable pollution diet, our Chesapeake is responding. Progress is hard-won, but summer dead zones are shrinking in spite of climate change May 2021

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com

F HARD-WON PROGRESS While other indicators show improvement, striped bass still suffer from overfishing.

MATT RATH/CHESAPEAKE BAY PROGRAM

that warms the Bay. That heat threatens the critical eelgrass beds of the lower Bay, but underwater grasses are rebounding in fresher waters. As this issue goes to press, though, our beloved rockfish suffer from overfishing. Now the striped bass management plans of the ’80s and ’90s must build stronger conservation, while the pollution diet and habitat restoration give them a healthier Bay to live in.

ifty years on, we have every reason to believe 1971 wasn’t Robin Tyler’s Last Good Summer (in retirement, he’s already finding speckled trout again in Tangier Sound), and that good news will fill Chesapeake Bay Magazine for the next 50 years. If restoring the Chesapeake’s health were simple, we’d have finished the job 20 years ago. This is the most complex ecosystem restoration project ever attempted, turning around a century and a half of (largely unintentional, but ignorant) environmental abuse. Is the Chesapeake’s cleanup complete?

No. Is it better? Hell yes! Will it be worth the work and the cost? Hell yes, again! Let’s finish this job. h CBM Editor at Large John Page Williams is a fishing guide, educator, author, and naturalist, saving the Bay since 1973.

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS YOUR GUIDE TO THE HOT RURAL HOUSING MARKET

BY JEFF HOLLAND In a work-from-home world, some people are looking for a change of scenery. Without the constraints of an office to commute to, why not live someplace off the beaten path? Working remotely has inspired some people to make their home office more remote.

Over the past year, real estate professionals in rural markets have been selling homes to urban and suburban dwellers alike, and the market has rarely been so hot.

That’s why it’s so important to work with a real estate professional, someone who knows the local market and how to control what might otherwise be an unusually rushed and intricate process for buyers & sellers.

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This market “is difficult to navigate,” cautions Chris McNelis, owner and broker of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices The McNelis Group Properties, with offices in Dunkirk and Solomons Island in southern Maryland. “The quality of life in our area has become better known over the past few years. Low interest rates are of foundational importance, but our location just outside of the Washington, D.C. market is key.”

Southern Maryland offers space, she says, “and people are looking for space where they can retreat and still telecommute, where they can buy that second home they’ve always wanted, one that’s just two hours from their primary home, and where they know that they can stay connected enough to work but feel confident that they’re safe” from the effects of the pandemic. And a lot of that space is on the Chesapeake Bay, the Patuxent or Potomac rivers or on countless creeks and coves. “Sometimes we show the property by boat,” McNelis notes.

Lisa Shultz, with Long & Foster/The Shultz Team based in Whitestone, Va., is also seeing a hot market on Virginia’s Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck. “It’s wild right now,” she says. “We are seeing property going fast down here ... We’ve had people waive home inspections—we’ve even had lots of sight-unseen purchases. Even homes that would normally be considered hard to market are going under contract, in a quick time, far above the assessed value. It’s hard on the buyer to act super-fast, especially if you have a contingency.”

Bo Bragg of Bragg & Company, with offices in Irvington and Kilmarnock, Va., advises that “if you’re a buyer you should quickly align yourself with a broker who has a team that’s savvy about finding listings, because they’re pretty scarce. There’s so little inventory, as soon as any team members here gets a listing, they’re going to work with the other team members to find a buyer. Working with a local agent who has ties in the area, who’s tied to the community, those are the people who are able to get those listings.”

The Northern Neck of Virginia, Bragg says, is “one of those ‘escape routes.’ It used to be that people were buying second or third homes here, but now they’re living here year-round. It’s been a tremendous boon to the local economy.”

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Your Northern Neck & Middle Peninsula of Virginia Real Estate Specialists

First offering on this amazing waterfront home with beautiful views of Hull Creek A beautiful waterfront setting in full bloom! This property is lovingly maintained & over 2 acres of land. The home features 1 floor living, open floor plan, featuring a traditional floor plan with 4 bedroom and 2.5 bathrooms on Hull Creek with 9’ ceilings and hardwood floors. Enjoy outdoor living with the waterside deck and pier with boat lift. For all your storage and tinkering needs there is an screened porch, large deck & pier. oversized, 2 car garage w/ attached insulated workshop and a detached shed.

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

CHRIS MCNELIS

chris.mcnelis@mcnelisgroup.com 410.349.0990 mcnelisgroup.com As broker/owner of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices McNelis Group Properties, Chris McNelis leads a group of awardwinning real estate agents from offices in Solomons and Dunkirk, Md. Her extensive background in residential and commercial real estate has allowed her to form strong connections within the Southern Maryland business community and far-reaching relationships with clients, colleagues, and support professionals. She also guides non-local businesses through property acquisitions, development, and relocations.

HELENMATTINGLYWERNECKE

helen.wernecke@mcnelisgroup.com 301.904.5344 hmwproperties.com

Helen has enjoyed a true love of real estate and this passion became her calling when she joined the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices brand under McNelis Group Properties. She provides a refreshing, powerful blend of professionalism, customer service, market analysis, attention to detail, and strong negotiating and closing skills.

She is a tirelessly committed advocate for her clients and properties and is extremely creative in identifying buyers. Helen’s focus is on waterfront properties along with farms/ agricultural properties. Helen is known for her strong attention to detail, personal followthrough and outstanding analytical and negotiating skills.

NEILL SHULTZ

neillshultz@gmail.com 804.580.0476 shultzrealtors.com Neill started in Real Estate in 2012, joining his wife and mother in a real estate team.

The Shultz Team represents the top agents with Long & Foster for the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula. Neill has worked in drafting management with architectural and maintenance systems companies and tree surveying. Neill’s family moved to the Northern Neck when he was eight years old and knows the waterways like his own backyard. He graduated from Lancaster High School and was a member of Boy Scouts of America, earning his Eagle Scout Award. Neill graduated from James Madison University where he earned degrees in Anthropology and Environmental Science. He is a member of the Kilmarnock Planning Commission.

JEFFREY LEWIS

JUDY SZYNBORSKI

jeffrey.lewis@mcnelisgroup.com 410.474.1811 mcnelisgroup.com

judy.szynborski@mcnelisgroup.com 410.394.0990 mcnelisgroup.com

A Southern Maryland native, Jeffrey graduated from Frostburg State University with a B.A. in Business Administration and a concentration in Entrepreneurship. He accepted the role as Branch Manager of the Dunkirk Real Estate Advisory Center in 2018. Since that time, he continues to set his sights on growth; not only for McNelis Group but for the Real Estate Trusted Advisors he manages. As a REALTOR®, he loves working with families to help them find the home of their dreams. He has built his reputation by remaining on the forefront of social media marketing strategies and by having exceptional knowledge of the Southern Maryland community and housing market.

Judy Szynborski, REALTOR® is a licensed real estate professional with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices McNelis Group Properties, serving Southern Maryland and beyond.

Her dedication, experience, and problemsolving abilities in an ever-changing real estate environment have afforded Judy many accolades throughout her career. She is a Leading Edge Society Award winner and among the top 10% of the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Network for 2020.

Judy always provides a high level of service and has the experience to guide transactions to a successful close for her clients. Judy is a Chesapeake Bay area native who enjoys boating and international travel.

LISA SHULTZ

BEVERLY SHULTZ

lisa@shultzrealtors.com 804.724.1587 shultzrealtors.com Lisa is a native of Virginia and started in real estate in 2012, joining her husband and mother-in-law in a real estate team.

She has been awarded the Long & Foster Service Award for The Bay/River Office two years in a row. The Shultz Team represents the top agents with Long & Foster for the Northern Neck & Middle Peninsula. Lisa grew up in Fairfax Co., Virginia and graduated from James Madison University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and two minors in Mathematics and Spanish.

beverly@beverlyshultz.com 804.436.4000 shultzrealtors.com Beverly is an Associate Broker and started in real estate in 1991 in the Northern Neck with Bowers, Nelms & Fonnville. She was named Rookie of The Year and launched her successful career in real estate. In 2012, Beverly joined her son and daughter-inlaw in a real estate team. The Shultz Team represents the top agents with Long & Foster for the Northern Neck & Middle Peninsula. Beverly was raised in Mississippi and moved to Northern Virginia with her family in 1979, but once they crossed over the Rappahannock River, they knew they were home. With 30 years of real estate experience in the Northern Neck, Beverly has unsurpassed knowledge of the area’s waterways and lifestyle.

DAWN PARRISH

BYRL TAYLOR

dawnsparrish@gmail.com 804.833.5351 shultzrealtors.com Dawn began her real estate career in 1997.

Starting on the property management side of the industry, she serviced the needs of 200+ residents at multiple properties. The sale of her first home sparked an interest in the buying and selling side of the industry and she became licensed in 2006. She’s found great passion and pride in walking the path of home ownership with many clients throughout the years. Dawn and her husband, Shane, have been married since 2002. They have three children, Jacob, Mya and Courtney with 2 fur babies Levi and Palace. After enjoying part-time river life, they decided to make the Northern Neck their full time home!

byrl@byrltaylor.com 804.356.7879 vanorthernneck.com An established and respected Realtor, Byrl also holds her Associate Broker license and is a former Member of the Virginia Real Estate Board. She has been helping buyers and sellers since 1979 and specializes in waterfront properties, rural farms, land, and residential homes. She is a resident of Virginia’s famed Northern Neck and is an expert in the region. As the former owner/ broker of Byrl Phillips Realty, Byrl has the knowledge and experience to guide you through a successful home sale or purchase.

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SPONSORED CONTENT

WOMAN-OWNED real estate firm was uncommon in 1975, but Isabell was determined.

A

third-generation leaders of the business, with four office locations and more than thirty agents.

She jumped both feet first into her dream of owning her own real estate firm and bought an old two-room gas station in Urbanna, Virginia. A few years later, Isabell built a two-story brick building and this remains the Main Office location to this day.

“We love what we do,” says Katie emphatically. “We are so fortunate to be able to share our little slice of heaven with others, and to help them invest in a better quality of life for their families.”

Isabell’s affinity for real estate, her hard work ethic, and her devotion to family became the foundation of this familyowned firm. She was often heard saying “do one thing you love and do it well.” That advice made an impression on Isabell’s granddaughter Katie Horsley Dew. She and her husband David are now the

That little slice of heaven and hidden gem is better known as the Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck, a rural region of the southern Chesapeake Bay located on Virginia’s western shore. Some refer to it as God’s Country and anyone fortunate enough to have visited some of the quaint seaside villages such as Urbanna, Deltaville, White Stone, Kilmarnock, Irvington, Visit www.horsleyrealestate.com

or Mathews will likely agree. Small-town charm abounds, fresh seafood is caught daily from the family dock, and children spend more time outdoors than they do on electronics. “It’s a quality of life that’s hard to come by elsewhere,” according to Katie.

Many of Horsley’s clients come from big cities like D.C. and Richmond, and immediately fall in love with the natural beauty and slower pace. This combined with the pandemic has fueled record sales of waterfront homes and has made the buying process more competitive.

“Now more than ever, it is so important to work with a local expert who lives, works, and plays in the same community,” says Katie. As a lifelong resident of the Northern Neck who was literally born into the industry, one would be hard-pressed to find a Real Estate Firm more knowledgable of the area.

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

NEENA RODGERS

neena@rodgersandburton. com 804.436.2326 rodgersandburton.com Neena has been a top producer and consistent Platinum Award recipient since joining the Horsley firm in 2003. She is proud to have been named a Top Virginia Realtor 3 years in a row. A Cum Laude graduate of American University, Neena and her husband moved to “The River” in 2001 for the wide open spaces and uncluttered waterways, and her family relishes their time cruising and sailing. Neena’s clients love her tenacity and integrity, and she attributes her success to hard work, an extensive knowledge of the waterways and care and concern for every client. Neena manages the Horsley office in Deltaville.

ANDREA HOLT

andreajholt@gmail.com 804.854.9530 waterfronthomesnorthernneck.com Andrea Holt moved to the Chesapeake Bay area from Fairfax, Va. in 1997 when she and her family purchased a marina in Deltaville on the Piankatank River. Since then Andrea has held positions for boating and tourism publications, as a modular home sales consultant and, in 2013, as a realtor with Isabell Horsley Real Estate.

Andrea’s experience in marketing, general construction knowledge, and above all, her passion for the Bay and rivers of the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula, have contributed to her success and consecutive Platinum Sales Awards.

MCKANN PAYNE

mckannp@gmail.com 804.815.4192 horsleyrealestate.com McKann Payne is a native of Urbanna, in the Middle Peninsula. She is uniquely suited for success in real estate with her in-depth understanding of the region, an astute eye for design, and her superb organizational skills with a can-do attitude. This has earned McKann loyalty and respect in the real estate industry. Prior to entering real estate, McKann was an accomplished master educator for nearly 20 years with superior communication skills, which she has carried into real estate.

McKann is a graduate of James Madison University. She and her husband, Chad, and their son reside in White Stone on the beautiful Carters Creek.

DIANA WOLFSON

dwsellsnnk@gmail.com 940.395.1775 horsleyrealestate.com Diana Wolfson, a native of the Potomac area, grew up coming to the Northern Neck throughout the summers. She has always loved the beautiful waterfront area and knew she wanted to raise her children with the same admiration. Diana and her husband moved back to the the Northern Neck in 2013 and started Northern Neck Burger (NN Burger). Diana decided to step away from the restaurant business and pursue the career that has always fascinated her—real estate. Diana resides in White Stone with her husband and two sons.

SANDI LENT

sandi@rivahrealestate.com 804.694.6101 horsleyrealestate.com With a career that spans 20+ states and thousands of transactions, Sandi has devoted her career to residential real estate. Whether a waterfront estate or cozy condominium, Sandi’s analytical perspective and negotiating skills are ideal in guiding her clients to fulfill their real estate goals. White glove service is her trademark, providing uncommon experience in every type of residential sale. When she and husband Tim chose the Piankatank River in Hartfield as their new home in 2001, Sandi put this knowledge to work. She appreciates and understands all the amazing benefits of life in Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay region.

SHELLEY RITTER

shelleyritter@gmail.com 301.717.5157 horsleyrealestate.com Shelley Ritter has developed an eye for homes through a background in real estate staging, visual merchandising, interior design, and sales. This makes Shelley a great asset in finding you a home or a buyer for your property. Working with clients in the home furnishing field, Shelley came to appreciate the deep connection between people and their houses.

In today’s world, we are spending more time at home than ever before. Our house has become a home office, our favorite restaurant, and the center of family entertainment.

BERNADETTE LA CASSE

bernilacasse@gmail.com 804.384.7740 burtonswaterfront.com

Mathews, VA White Stone, VA

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Bernadette La Casse has lived on the Middle Peninsula of the Chesapeake Bay since 2005 and loves the unique charm and pace of the region. She has been involved in waterfront real estate since 2014, and looks forward to helping you navigate your real estate needs. Bernadette brings over 30 years’ experience in finance and operations with global manufacturing, financial services and pharmaceutical corporations. Her experience in finance and management help facilitate these sometimes complex real estate transactions. Bernadette is proud to be voted a Top Agent in Virginia, and is dedicated to providing the critical information necessary for her clients and her team as Broker for the Mathews/Gloucester Office.

SHYANN LEWIS

selewisrealtor@gmail.com 804.338.0483 horsleyrealestate.com

Urbanna, VA

Shyann Lewis moved to the Middle Peninsula area in 2009 after spending most of her summers on the Rappahannock River and the Chesapeake Bay. Shyann started her journey with Horsley Real Estate when she became an agent’s assistant in 2017. Since then, she has assisted with over 100 closings and has earned her real estate license while also completing a degree in Business Management. Shyann enjoys showing off the unique lifestyles of the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula and is ready to serve you at the Horsley office located in Urbanna.

Deltaville, VA VIRGINIA STOUGHTON

coastalva@virginiastoughton. com 804.577.3584 horsleyrealestate.com

Virginia Stoughton has deep family roots in Lancaster County as her family, all the way back to her great-grandparents, have lived here. Virginia was born in White Stone but then moved to Manassas. Her parents moved back to White Stone to retire, and because Virginia loves the area, she moved back with her own family in 2006. Virginia is mother to three teenage boys and her interests include watching and cheering her kids on in their various sports and musical endeavors. She also has a love for spending time near the water and a passion for rock music.

TIM DANIEL

timdaniel817@yahoo.com 413.221.2331 horsleyrealestate.com A native of Massachusetts, Tim and his family moved to Mathews County and instantly fell in love with the simplicity and tightknit nature of the community. He has a background in EMT services and spent five years working for Heritage Museums and Gardens on Cape Cod. Tim uses his strong service orientation, plus maintenance and horticulture background, to help his clients find their perfect forever home.

PAT WILLETT

BOBBY WHEELER

pat.horsleyre@gmail.com 804.436.5235 horsleyrealestate.com Pat has been in the Real Estate business since 1979, serving clients in Fredericksburg, Va. for 25 years before relocating with her husband upon his retirement from United Airlines to the Northern Neck of Virginia . They live in White Stone on Tabbs Creek.

Selling waterfront properties has been a joy of a lifetime, helping people to experience the waterways of the Chesapeake Bay and adjacent rivers and creeks. In her 15 years selling homes in the area, Pat has served many satisfied homebuyers who have become friends and neighbors.

bobbynnagent@gmail.com 804.435.2644 horsleyrealestate.com Bobby Wheeler was born and raised in Northern Virginia. He was employed for 26 years with the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department, retiring in 2011. Bobby has an affinity for the Chesapeake Bay and is well educated in the knowledge of the bay and its tributaries. He has always loved fishing and is a member of Ducks Unlimited in the Northern Neck. He also enjoys gardening and physical fitness. Bobby and his wife Colleen live in Lively, Va. where they enjoy the waterfront and country living. They have two children and two grandchildren.

DAVID DEW

KATIE HORSLEY DEW

davidedew@gmail.com 804.436.3106 horsleyrealestate.com Managing Broker and Realtor for 20 years, David Dew knows the market in the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula areas of Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay. Native to Richmond, VA, David moved to White Stone in early 2000’s with his wife, Katie Horsley Dew. Before Real Estate, he was a loan officer and a branch manager at a local bank. David and his wife have successfully made a name for themselves as leading brokers for the familyowned company and have the knowledge and negotiation skills to provide buyers and sellers with the best service. David and Katie reside on Dymer Creek with their two children and thoroughly enjoy and are grateful for all life has to offer.

katiedew@horsleyrealestate.com 804.436.6256 horsleyrealestate.com Growing up in the family firm, Katie has been surrounded by real estate her entire life with her grandmother, founder of Horsley Real Estate and father, now Principal Broker, passing along the work ethics and marketing skills to continue to grow with her buyers and sellers, and set the family firm above the rest. A husband and wife team, David and Katie cover all the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula areas of Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay and specialize in waterfront estates and homes.

David and Katie live with their two children on Dymer Creek and feel completely grateful for a fulfilled life in work and home.

May 2021

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Riverscape Contemporary

Corrotoman Riverfront | Deep-water Pier | Sweeping Views Lancaster, VA Price: $1,259,950 This unique home provides an unparalleled waterfront experience that is sure to make you relax. Designed by renowned firm Randall Kipp Architecture and built in 2018, the home captures breathtaking views of the Corrotoman River and brings them inside with floor to ceiling windows and doors and an open concept with multiple decks. The deep-water private pier (6’+ MLW) offers protection for vessels of nearly any size. The home faces south-southwest, providing stunning sunsets over the sandy shoreline. It is built above the floodplain on 50′ pilings that are 40′ deep with structural engineered steel brackets. Exterior siding and roof are standing seam metal panels. Kitchen counters are plate steel with a tung oil finish, and the floors are a durable luxury vinyl tile — perfect for carefree living. Take waterfront living to the next level!

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WILD CHESAPEAKE

Into the Labyrinth

Hunting for tarpon on Virginia’s Eastern Shore—by Chris D. Dollar

MASA USHIODA/ COOLWATERPHOTO.COM

O

n a rain-soaked spring day, my mind wandered back to when social distancing meant venturing off the beaten path to try and catch fish. One vivid recollection from two years back: three of us in a skiff, throttle pinned, skating through a narrow, seaside channel on Virginia’s lower Eastern Shore.

To the disinterested, everything we passed would have appeared featureless and bland. But below the surface, seagrass meadows swayed like verdant ribbons. Coastal wetlands rich with spartina gave way to bay berry and wax myrtle thickets, and then to stands of pines on the higher ground. On mud flats and beaches, herons, egrets, and other wading birds patrolled the edges. Gulls, pelicans,

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 84

May 2021

and sea birds of varying stripes wheeled overhead. Sand dollars, ribbed scallops, and whelk shells adorned sandy beaches. And although the oyster reefs were covered by the near-super tide, you knew they were there; and if you carelessly strayed outside the thin channel, they’d remind you and your gelcoat of their presence.

From Chincoteague Bay down through Magothy Bay, the labyrinth of sloughs, cuts, and channels that dissect these barrier islands seems endless. We knew we weren’t the first to poke our skiffs into such secretive salt marsh guts, but it felt a bit that way. On this August day we came not to explore these magical waters. We were on the hunt for tarpon.

In Search of the Silver King It may surprise you to learn that tarpon fishing on Virginia’s coastal bays dates back to the 1930s. The first intentional catch in Virginia waters, in 1955, is credited to Claude Rogers, who used to run the state’s popular Saltwater Fishing Tournament. In the decades that followed, anglers in our region who routinely target tarpon have been as tight-lipped about specific tactics and locations as the Tabasco folks are about their magic hot-sauce recipe.

Tarpon are one of the most challenging gamefish under the best of circumstances. They are not only spectacular fighters that leap and twist but elusive, even ghostlike at

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can focus on the oversight and the long-range issues. Finally, if you are more the investor type and only want to visit occasionally, you have the option of hiring a third-party marina management company to handle everything.

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times—here, there, and everywhere, or nowhere at all. So when we launched from the public landing at Oyster, with nary a clue as to where the tarpon might be, I wasn’t the least bit dissuaded from the quest. Many of my best adventures have begun with worse odds.

An hour after entering a large embayment not too far from the Atlantic, we finally spied tarpon. At first it was just a single fish, but soon we saw a handful cavorting in an area the size of a football stadium. Near as I could tell, there were at least four, maybe six silver kings—could have been 12, I really don’t know—of varying sizes. None were small.

They’d surface to sip air, roll, swirl, and then with no rhyme or reason they’d disappear, only to

repeat their choreographed aquabatics 100 yards away 10 minutes later. The biggest I saw was easily more than 100 pounds. It rocketed out of the water like a muscular, armorplated missile. For more than two hours, my companions and I shadowed them, relentlessly tossing big swimming plugs, rubber shad-like lures, and even top-water poppers into their midst, all for naught. But it was a great show.

Many successful tarpon anglers use conventional rod-reel outfits in the 50-pound class. They often drift fresh-cut bunker or live croakers or spot, at different depths. I’ve been told three rods is plenty because if you do have multiple hook-ups, the ensuing mayhem becomes unmanageable.

Both times I’ve tarpon fished I’ve used

a seven-foot spinning rod (heavy power) matched to a 5,000-sized reel loaded with 40-pound test braid and a 60-pound leader.

Catching a tarpon in Virginia’s seaside waters is enough of a challenge, but getting one to eat a fly, much less bring it to hand—well, that’s downright miraculous. But it has been done, more times than I would have thought possible. In fact, in the summer of 2018, Annapolis resident John Loe tells me he fought one for an hour and a half. It pulled him two miles from the original point of hooking up. When the big fish finally tired enough for Loe to get it boatside, he and his guide Ken Eshelman quickly took measurements: 63 inches long with a 29-inch girth, putting it at an

estimated 85 pounds, he said, using the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust’s formula to estimate weight. The Virginia state record is a 130-pound fish caught by Barry Truitt in 1975, off of Oyster.

Virginia offers anglers a citation plaque for releasing any tarpon measuring at least 36 inches, which all do in these waters, experts say.

Marine biologists believe each spring tarpon follow baitfish like mullet up the coast from Florida or the Gulf of Mexico. July is prime tarpon fishing time, if there is such a thing, in Virginia’s back bays. A handful roam into the Chesapeake proper, and catches have been documented in Maryland waters, too. By the end of September, these silver kings are southbound.

Excuse me a moment while I step atop my conservationist soapbox: Tarpon fishing should be strictly catch-and-release. Why kill such a magnificent creature? True, I have yet to bring a Virginia tarpon to hand, but when I do, I know I won’t lift it into the boat for a hero photo. As powerful as they are, they’re not unbreakable.

I’ll keep it in the water, I’ll lower my head over the gunwale and have a buddy snap a quick shot. Then we’ll resuscitate it enough for a healthy release. Granted, there are a lot of “ifs” in my plan, but that’s fishing.

Everyone needs a respite from a fractious world, especially one mired in a pandemic. My advice? Head into that labyrinth of barely explored channels, where salt-drenched air washes over you at daybreak. I guarantee you’ll find it cathartic and rejuvenating. As to your chances of actually catching a tarpon? Well, yours are as good as mine.

Capt. Chris Dollar is a fishing guide, tackle shop owner, and all-around Chesapeake outdoorsman with more than 25 years experience in avoiding office work.

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37’ 2001 Jeanneau SO 37 ................................... $75,000 37’ 2002 Pacific Seacraft 37 ............................ $120,000 37’ 2006 Tartan 3700 .......................................... $210,000 37’ 2008 Tartan 3700 CCR ................................ $225,000 36’ 2006 Hunter 36 ................................................ $89,500 36’ 2020 Legacy 36 - IN STOCK .............................. CALL 36’ 2021 Tartan 365 - August ................................. CALL 35’ 1986 Baltic 35 ................................................... $69,000 34’ 2021 Jeanneau SO 349 - In Stock .................. CALL 34’ 1990 Pacific Seacraft Crealock 34 .............. $89,000 34’ 2008 Tartan 3400 # 65 - ILL ....................... $131,000 33’ 2012 Marlow Hunter 33 ................................ $90,000 33’ 2020 Grady White 330 Express ................ $449,000 33’ 2015 Tartan 101 ............................................ $139,000 32’ 2005 Nordic Tugs 32 ................................... $219,000 31’ 1999 Hunter 310 ............................................. $42,500 31’ 1986 Island Packet 31 .................................... $70,000 29’ 2019 Monteray 295SY ................................ $165,000 26’ 2021 NImbus T8 .................................................... CALL 24’ 1989 Dana 24 .................................................. $49,000

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chesapeakebaymagazine.com/boating

STERN LINES

50 Years and Counting

by Janie Meneely

COURTESY PHOTO

I

n 1970, my friend Karen and I, recent high school sailing adventures—contributed, for the most part, by CBM graduates, took the trophy for the Annapolis Yacht readers, including magazine founders Dick and Dixie Club’s summer Wednesday Night race series. Not only Goertemiller, by then retired, who produced monthly were we the youngest to ever win that prize, we were cruising episodes from the log of their boat Moonsong. women! So many things have shifted on the Bay since As the years flew by, Bay anchorages grew more then—some good, some better, some bad—and this crowded than ever, a flotilla of liveaboards moved up and magazine has borne witness to it all. Here’s what I recall. down the coast with the seasons, and our kids had to get The 1970s was the boating licenses. Then, crucible for so many wonder of wonders, I was changes. Most notable, asked to join the CBM perhaps, was the advent staff as managing editor. I of in-water boat shows, a worked with too many concept pioneered by talented writers to name, Peter Carroll in the and I mentored a young Annapolis harbor. The summer intern from decade marked the Washington College, “rehoming” of the Bay’s Megan Walburn. She’s iconic screwpile Megan Viviano now, and lighthouses, following the in charge of the whole relocation of the Hooper shebang.

Strait Light to the nascent The magazine Chesapeake Bay Maritime thrived, subscribers Museum. To celebrate the doubled, the boating nation’s bicentennial, a industry boomed. There group of volunteer was a new momentum shipwrights launched the and sense of energy. I’m Pride of Baltimore. glad to have been a part Celebrity sailors such as of that and to have Ted Turner threw a spotlight on steadied the helm as CBM set its SAILING ON racing, and boats got bigger, faster, course into the 2010s and beyond.

The author looks back and way more expensive. Yacht clubs That said, the new millennium got swankier; boatyard bathrooms got dawned on a very different Bay than cleaner. The age of fiberglass had the one I knew as a kid. Thomas Point arrived. But even as a new era of boating set in, an old one is the only screwpile left in situ. There’s still no seaweed to died when John Trumpy & Sons, Inc., builders of fine speak of, but eagles are everywhere. Oyster restoration is yachts, closed for good. gaining momentum. We have cellphones and electronic By the 1980s, I was raising a family aboard our navigation. And 50 years after Karen and I took home that Pearson Invicta Mae S. Seaweed had all but disappeared. trophy, plenty of women own their own boats. Karen and I Riprap was replacing natural shorelines, but like bentstill sail together when we can. Oddly, though, it’s gotten winged rays of hope, ospreys were becoming almost harder to get up the swim ladder. h commonplace. When my daughter, age six, and I saw our Janie Meneely is a storyteller, songwriter, and musician, and first bald eagle at the same time, our hearts sang. And I sold a freelance story (about the great osprey comeback) to a native daughter of the Bay. She served as managing editor Chesapeake Bay Magazine. Dick Royer owned it by then. It of Chesapeake Bay Magazine for more than a decade, beginning in 1998, and later as editor-in-chief. was a chatty collection of stories—DIY tips, Bay history,

ChesapeakeBayMagazine.com 96

May 2021

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