If you’re a serious fly fisherman, this is the place to be

TieFest, a five-year-old event, is being held at the Kent Island Yacht Club in Chester (117 Yacht Club Drive, at the old road at Kent Narrows), from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is free.

Headlining the show are Lefty Kreh and Bob Popovics, along with 30 tyers. There will be rod and tackle manufacturers and dealers, fly-casting seminars, presentations from guides and captains, and raffle tickets will be available to win a great Temple Fork, G. Loomis, Sage or St. Croix fly rod.

Honcho Tony Friedrich of the Kent Island Coastal Conservation Association notes that all raffle money goes to the Maryland Artificial Reef Initiative. Tyers from Massachusetts to North Carolina will be on hand. Check www.tiefest.com for more details.

» The two-year manipulation and massage of yellow perch regulations, along with some urging from the legislature, finally has been chiseled in stone. With this, recreational fishermen should have a better chance of creeling yellow neds than in the past when the regs seemed to favor the commercial guys.

Department of Natural Resource figures show that past commercial yellow perch efforts garnered 80 percent of the catch. Now, it should work close to a 50-50 allocation. You can take yellow perch year-round, with closed areas being the Magothy, Nanticoke, Patapsco, Severn, South and West rivers.

The only substantive change, if you can call a half-inch a substantive change, is that the proposed recreational size limit of 8 1/2 inches was pushed back up to the former minimum size of 9 inches. Also, the barbless hook requirement is gone. The creel limit of five per day stays.

Two streams — McIntosh Run off Breton Bay (St. Mary’s County) and Northeast Creek off Northeast River (Cecil County) — are closed to all fishing and designated as restoration creeks. These new regulations just became effective Jan. 28.

» The spring trophy season for stripers is set similar to last season. It begins April 19 and runs through May 13 with a limit of one striped bass per day of 28 inches or larger.

The following Bay-wide season (excepting bays, coves and tributaries) begins May 16 and runs through May 31. The summer/fall striper season allowing fishing in the whole bay and tributaries runs from June 1 through Dec. 15. Both seasons allow creel limits of two fish, 18 to 28 inches or one of that size and one larger.

» The catch-and-release season on the Susquehanna Flats continues this year as in the past, from March 1 through May 3. A newly proposed catch-and-keep season for the Flats is swimming its way through the approval process, which — if passed — will allow taking one striper per day with a slot limit of 18 to 26 inches during a short season of May 16 through May 31. Passage is expected and should come by Feb. 25.

» Right now you can’t catch or target stripers, but you can still eat them, even if the freezer is as bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. The Department of Agriculture is promoting their two-month-long rockfish buy-it-and-cook-it or eat-at a-restaurant deal, since this is the height of the Maryland commercial season. At $15.49 per pound at my local Safeway, you’ll also better appreciate catching and keeping a few once the right seasons roll around.

» Early spring trout stocking is in full swing, with the totals this year to be higher than last, despite the whirling disease debacle that last season occurred in state hatcheries. More than 337,000 trout will be stocked through 2008. An additional 15,000 trout from 1 1/2 to 2 pounds also will be stocked, courtesy of the Conservation Fund’s Freshwater Institute. Those are nice fish — 15 to 18 inches in length.

In addition to state hatcheries, private vendors will be making up some of the shortfall. For stocking updates, call 1-800-688-3467 or pick up a stocking schedule from local tackle shops and DNR service centers.