C. Boyd Pfeiffer, The Examiner
2008-06-06 07:00:00.0
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BALTIMORE -

Getting the Diamond Jim/Maryland Fishing Challenge off to an early start this season has more anglers than ever in the potential prize pot.

This year’s start on April 12 — six weeks before June’s debut last year — has up to 800 anglers already in the mix to win a Toyota Tundra 4X4 pickup truck from Central Atlantic Toyota or a boat, engine and trailer package from Bass Pro Shops. That’s great, and it signals about four times as many anglers as were registered for the entire three months last year.

You need to catch any citation fish (60 species) from inland, Bay or Atlantic Coast waters to have a chance of winning some super prizes.   The contest ends Sept. 1.

As in previous years, the specially and secretively tagged Diamond Jim is swimming around in the Bay, one of 21 tagged stripers in Bay waters now. Twenty “impostor” stripers are worth $500 each; the Diamond Jim is worth $10,000 from Boaters World and a $5,000 diamond from Smyth Jewelers. Check contest details at www.dnr.maryland.gov/fishingchallenge.

» The bad news is, we have Didymo algae in the Gunpowder. The good news? Since reported a few weeks ago, intensive searches throughout the state by Department of Natural Resources biologists have not located anymore of this invasive, bottom-blanketing nuisance, according to Don Cosden, DNR’s assistant director of fisheries.

Warning signage is up along streams, along with six saltwater bath sterilization stations along the Gunpowder. Felt soles are particularly bad, with a one-minute wash in the salt bath a must to kill the algae and protect trout fishing. It is not just felt-wearing fishermen who are the problem. The Gunpowder is multipurpose, with potential spreads possible from canoeists, kayakers, dogs, hikers, swimmers and tubers.

» The new Stealth Striper Season — unknown except for a note on the DNR Internet site — seemed to have little effect on stripers this year. This Susky Flats season allowed taking one striper per angler per day, 18 to 26 inches, from May 16 through May 31. However, the season seemed to have slipped into and out of the fishing calendar with little notice.

“It appears it was not the smashing hit that we thought it would be. It was marginal at best,” said DNR biologist Marty Gary, who noted that there were only one or two dozen boats daily on the Flats for this, not the few hundred that were expected.

» The 2008 spring turkey harvest was up from last spring (2,833 in 2008 to 2,455 in 2007). It is still down from the recent high of 3,127 birds in 2002, which means that we are perking along exactly as we should.

That “balance of nature” that we all hear about is not made with a carpenter’s level — it is primarily the ups and downs of available food and weather that make wildlife populations of flora and fauna vary with slight sine curves, but within specific ranges.

The little guys from this year will be hatching over the next few weeks, according to DNR turkey biologist Bob Long, so it is impossible to tell how they will affect possibilities this fall.

The recent high take in the spring of 2002 was a result of a couple of years of good springs with food and favorable weather to push turkey populations up. “Those was near-perfect conditions,” said Long.

The good news is that hunters did particularly well on the upper Eastern Shore this year, signaling an increase in turkey tracks there and good possibilities for the future.

C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally known sportsman and award-winning writer on fishing, hunting, and the outdoors. He can be reached at cbpfeiffer@msn.com