NEWS
November 1, 1987
“The Navy canceled tests of underwater explosives in Chesapeake Bay after a blast killed as many as 3,000 sea trout and produced criticism from fishermen and officials. “We were surprised we had any kill at all” from Friday’s explosion, said Diane Palermo, a Navy spokeswoman. The explosion came a year after the Navy promised the charges would not cause significant fish kills.”
Courtesy latimes.com (go figure)
Present Day – Does anyone remember when this test occurred? I know, I’m showing my age (and yours if you answer). If I remember correctly, the majority of the fish were juvenile spotted sea trout. I was surprised at the time because it was reported November 1st and I thought all the specks had left for the season. Now I’m told the juveniles may winter here. I think it was the main bay off Solomons somewhere. I bring this up because the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) has applied for permission to conduct a new tagging study using acoustic tags – signal tracking – on speckled trout in the bay region. I’m not read in on the project so I don’t know the current status. In addition to tracking the fishes movements a temperature sensor will be implanted in the fish which should help us to understand cold weather migration and cold stun kill events. So little is really known about the speckled trout’s winter migration patterns. If approved, the results should be published in early 2016. You may reply to me by email if you don’t want to do it here. Thanks! kjosenhans@aol.com
Josenhans Fly Fishing Blog 
Have you read about the trout poachers on the Elizabeth River? You can read about it on the Va. Board on Tidalfish.
I did see that Al. Thanks. Makes you wonder how many they took before they got caught. Shame.
We are in new. Smyrna fla …caught some nice specs yesterday hear its brrrr up your way ……be safe. Tom LIlly
Great to hear Tom! No speck fishing up here for awhile. 6″-7″ inches of snow last night and the bay is frozen in spots. 20 degrees right now.
I remember it. It happened up off the honga river. It was near barren island.
Walt
I think you’re right Walt. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of that new speckled trout survey. They may winter over here in the deep water and no one even knows it. I never heard reports of wintering over specks until the last few years. I just figured it was because of the over abundance and they were being crowded out of their range.