Across the Chesapeake Bay watershed, dams are being demolished to restore fish habitat and remove potential threats to the safety of swimmers.… Read Story
Fisheries News
Restoring the Chesapeake Bay’s depleted underwater meadows is a painstaking process, requiring lots of elbow grease, savvy and patience. Parad… Read Story
David Harris grew up on a farm next door to the Naval Research Laboratory - Chesapeake Bay Detachment. He recalls camping with his scout troop… Read Story
Striped bass catches were down along the Atlantic coast last year, an early sign that tough regulations imposed across 15 states are helping t… Read Story
Across the Chesapeake Bay watershed, dams are being demolished to restore fish habitat and remove potential threats to the safety of swimmers.… Read Story
The acreage of underwater grasses in the Chesapeake Bay declined 7% in 2020, the second consecutive year that the amount of critical underwate… Read Story
A new study supplies more evidence that oyster restoration efforts are having the desired impact in Maryland’s tidal rivers, forming better re… Read Story
The invasive northern snakehead may not look terribly appetizing. To most people, it’s a creepy, toothy fish worthy of its “frankenfish” nickn… Read Story
This spring, William Harbold and his team of biologists with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources made a pair of thrilling discoveries… Read Story
Amid indications that Maryland’s oyster population is on the rebound, state fisheries managers are easing some harvest limits they had imposed… Read Story
The Chesapeake Bay’s “dead zone,” the oxygen-starved blob of water that waxes and wanes each summer, is forecast to be smaller than average fo… Read Story
The long-running Conowingo Dam controversy is back in court. On June 17, four environmental groups filed a legal challenge to the Federal Ener… Read Story
Amid signs of a significant but uneven rebound in Maryland’s oyster population, the state Department of Natural Resources is planning this fal… Read Story
On a warm spring morning, the fish were literally jumping in Mattawoman Creek. Anglers, both human and avian, flocked to the Potomac River tri… Read Story
The number of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay this winter plummeted to the fourth-lowest on record, driven largely by the worst-ever showing … Read Story
When Bruce Vogt launched his oyster farm a decade ago, he opted to raise his bivalves in a creek near the mouth of the York River because of i… Read Story
Early one April afternoon under a bright blue spring sky, Josh Cohn and Connor Lynch were bouncing a fishing jig off the bottom of the Potomac… Read Story
On a warm, sunny afternoon in June 2014, state, federal and local officials leading the long-running struggle to restore the Chesapeake Bay ga… Read Story
People have been farming oysters in the Chesapeake Bay since at least the 1800s, and some of the methods and tools in use today haven’t changed much. Read Story
The Virginia State Supreme Court has ruled that a waterman does not have the right to be compensated for property damages if the oyster ground… Read Story
By all accounts, Jabez Branch needs help. Read Story
Work is set to resume by early April on the protracted restoration of oyster reefs in Maryland’s Tred Avon River. The U.S. Army Corps of Engin… Read Story
Scientists are still trying to sort out exactly what’s causing sexual abnormalities among smallmouth bass in Chesapeake Bay rivers, but they m… Read Story
As a kid growing up on Bald Top Mountain above the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, Van Wagner would look down during times of low water to … Read Story
It was a bad sign last spring when Bob Orth answered the phone and the words spilled out from the other end. “Where did all the grass go?” The… Read Story
With several hours of daylight to spare, Ronnie Robbins and his son, Jason, had already docked their 36-foot deadrise workboat on Hooper’s Isl… Read Story
Environmentalists and scientists call it the “lost” branch. Read Story
Despite longstanding government alerts about the potential dangers of eating fish caught in the Anacostia River, some anglers aren’t getting t… Read Story
More testing has found so-called “forever chemicals” in a striped bass, blue crab and oyster from the Chesapeake Bay, as well as in drinking w… Read Story
Blue catfish, the invasive fish with a big appetite that is overwhelming many Chesapeake Bay tributaries, is probably here to stay. Read Story
Robert Johnson spends as much time watching the weather forecast as he does harvesting oysters these days. Read Story
A new search tool involving not much more than filling a container of water is revolutionizing how scientists detect and keep track of threate… Read Story
A Norwegian company’s plans to bring land-based salmon farming to Maryland’s Eastern Shore hit a snag Thursday night when one of the sites it … Read Story
The Hogan administration is moving to block Maryland oyster farmers from leasing spots in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries where there’s… Read Story
A pair of professors at Randolph-Macon College near Richmond likes to challenge their students with real-world problems. When they asked the J… Read Story
Striped bass can’t get a break, it seems. With their East Coast population in decline from overfishing, the migratory species had mixed succes… Read Story
One of the most crucial fish in the Chesapeake Bay’s aquatic food web is getting more protection from potential overfishing, but not as much a… Read Story
The record for the world’s largest oyster restoration project is poised to be broken with a new $30 million project on Maryland’s Eastern Shor… Read Story
A new round of testing for “forever chemicals” in St. Mary’s County, MD, found “no levels of concern” in oysters or in the waters of the Chesa… Read Story
The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a sweeping conservation measure that provides continued support for several key Chesapeake Bay … Read Story
A Maryland man has become the first person believed to have traveled the 203-mile length of the Chesapeake Bay on a standup paddleboard. Read Story
The American shad’s Atlantic population remains at a historic low, despite longstanding commercial fishing bans in several states and millions… Read Story
The Chesapeake Bay is known to many for the seafood it produces: blue crabs, oysters and striped bass. Read Story
Increasingly, as enormous flotillas of plastic waste drifting through the ocean continue to make news, the world is learning that it is awash … Read Story
Crawdad, crawfish, crayfish. No matter what you call the crustaceans, the rusty crayfish, an interloper from the Ohio River watershed, has bec… Read Story
High levels of “forever chemicals” have been reported in freshwater fish and water from a Maryland creek, raising new questions about the exte… Read Story
East Coast fishery managers have agreed to tie future menhaden population levels to the number needed to support a robust striped bass populat… Read Story
Normally, fisheries management aims to set harvest limits at levels that sustain the population of a particular species. Read Story
It springs to life each year in freshwater ponds and lakes as temperatures rise. By the middle of summer, the foliage is so thick and bushy at… Read Story
From Virginia to New York, residents of the Chesapeake Bay watershed were hit with a deluge of water in mid-July 2018. And it wasn’t just anot… Read Story