Josenhans Fly Fishing Blog

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

A few nice specks made a showing this week, including Mike Anderson’s 26-inch, six-pound trophy pictured below. If the wind would take a break for more than a day or two I believe our catch numbers would increase as well. Bluefish of two to three pounds are slamming Yo-Zuri Crystal Minnows rigged with single hooks while casting to shallow water structure. What a blast this is on my feather-light G. Loomis spin tackle!