MDE Nixes Cross County Connecter - Saves Mattawoman Creek

Cross County connector denied permit

The Cross County Connector, a long sought after four-lane highway to improve east to west traffic in Charles County, Md., has been denied a permit to be built by the Maryland Department of the Environment.

Environmentalists say the decision will save the Mattawoman Creek watershed, considered one of the best nurseries for migratory fish in the entire Chesapeake Bay.

The project would have filled in fresh-water wetlands, disturbed thousands of feet of stream and cleared almost 74 acres of forest.

Charles County commissioners say the turndown was not unexpected, but better transportation is still high on the needs list.

I heard this yesterday from Capt. Mike Starrett, a friend of mine, who guides extensively in Mattawoman Creek and the nearby Potomac River.  I guess I could have gone ahead and posted it, but I wanted to see it in "print".

Mattawoman Creek is indeed a gloriously undeveloped creek on the Potomac just south of Washington D.C.  I have fished it several times, mostly with Mike, and it is a true treasure, especially considering its proximity to D.C.

Here is a previous post from a spring fishing trip last year.  I have also posted one of Mike's pictures of Northern Snakeheads from Mattawoman.

Chesapeake to Get More Power

Combined-Cycle Gas Turbine generator to be built near Brandywine

Dallas-based independent power developer Panda Power Funds will build the proposed 859MW combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) Panda Mattawoman power plant, in Brandywine, southern Maryland, near the US capital of Washington DC. The Mattawoman project, scheduled for commissioning in 2016, is intended to cover the gap between power supply and demand in the region.

I, for one, think it might be educational if the enviro-ninnies in charge of Washington D.C. experienced a few years of insufficient power.  Unfortunately, given that they have the legislative and executive authority, I'm sure us rural bumpkins would suffer brownouts before they do.

Once operational, the CCGT plant will provide enough electricity to power 859,000 homes in the Greater Maryland and Washington DC metropolitan area. The plant is situated approximately 565 yards from the nearest road in an existing I-2 heavy industrial zone.

The Combined-Cycle Gas Turbine is an interesting technology, where the heat from the burning natural gas is used twice, first to turn the gas turbine (basically like a jet engine running on natural gas) and then the hot gases from that are used to boil water for a steam generator.  This increases the amount of energy for the amount of fuel used.

The Panda Mattawoman plant will have emissions control technology, the operator said. Like many gas-fired power plants, it is being planned termed a zero-liquid-discharge, which means it will not require waste water to a treatment facility treatment Chesapeake Bay. The cooling system at the plant will run on recycled municipal waste water.

So it should have essentially zero impact on the Chesapeake Bay.  Other than CO2, of course, which can be a limiting resource for the phytoplankton that grow in the Bay.

This of course, is due almost entirely to fracking, which has made natural gas a relatively cheap and clean source of power for the United States.  No wonder the libs keep trying to kill it.

Fishing Mattawoman

Trevor has been desperately begging to go snakehead fishing, so I arranged a trip with Capt. Dave Snelling, Capt. Mike's new (since laast year) partner at Indian Head Charters, for an afternoon/evening Snakehead/Bass fishing trip on Mattawoman Creek, a tidal creek on the Potomac River south of Washington DC.

Trevor came directly from church, and he was so excited that when he changed clothes, he forgot to take off his church shoes.  We arrived around 3 PM, and after an early dinner of chicken and ribs, provided by Capts. Dave and Mike, we set off. Great barbecue, by the way.

We spent the first several hours hunting Snakeheads with frog imitations among the lily pads. None were caught. although we had a couple blow ups that might have been bass or snakeheads.  Snakehead fishing has been poor this year.  Mike believes that the prevalence of pseudo-commercial bow hunting for restaurants has taken a toll on the population

 Mattawoman Creek is on of the true gems of the Chesapeake, a wild creek a few minutes downstream by boat from Washington DC. A tidal creek, the ebb and flood of the tide makes all the difference in

It was a while before I put the first fish on the boat, but eventually they started hitting with some regularity on various baits.

Eventually the sun went down, and the fishing really started.  We got several hits more after sunset, although Trevor lost all his fish before the boat.  I blamed his church shoes.

Including this one, that Capt. Dave charitably said might be the biggest of the year to date.  It struck a frog imitation right off the edge of the lily pads.

Alas, no Snakeheads.

Back Again!

Georgia, Charlie, his wife Sandy and I all went Largemouth Bass fishing this morning with a friend, Capt. Mike Starrett, of Indian Head Charters.  Mike guides in the tidal freshwater Potomac River region, and has a number of types of fishing experiences available at different times of the year, including bass, catfish, crappie, and a growing industry with snakeheads.  This was to have been "Bubba Bass" in the Potomac River proper, but the wind conspired against us, and forced us to stay in the creeks.  We launched at Slavin's Landing in Indian Head on Mattawoman Creek, braved the river long enough to get to Chicamuxen Creek, where the wind still howled and made it hard. The first bass in the slideshow as caught in Chicamuxen.  So we retreated to the more protected waters at back of Mattawomen.  We caught a few fish.  Georgia caught a small crappie on a bass plug, but she didn't give me time to get a picture.  We had a couple of shots at a snakeheads to day, but could not get a hit.

Mattawoman Creek is truly beautiful creek, located surprisingly close to Washington D.C.   It has extensive beds of various emergant water plants, including Spatterdock (a water lily relative), Pickeral Weed, and submerged beds of Hydrilla which make it excellent fish habitat, and quite beautiful landscapes.  We saw lots of birds including Bald Eagles, Ospreys, Great Blue Herons, Common Egrets.  I have a slideshow below, which doesn't do it justice.

In Pursuit of the Wiley Frankenfish

Yesterday afternoon, Georgia and I made our way over to Mattawoman Creek, where we had a charter trip with Capt. Mike Starrett of Indian Head Charters on a Largemouth Bass/Snakehead charter. We met at 3 PM for BBQ ribs and chicken, and were out on the water by 3:30.

 My usual scenes of Mattawoman shots. It's a shallow, tidal, largely freshwater creek, full of Hydrilla, Spatterdock, Pickeral weed, and other marsh plants.

Bass fishing was non existent. Not a one. According to Mike, our recent cool weather cooled the water from the low 90s to the 70s, and drove all the ass into the deeper waters.

Mike polled us into shallow, weedy waters where we tried several techniques for Snakeheads, top water plugs, and rubber frogs

We had a few hits, including one where a Snakehead went airborne with a plug.

 An Osprey overlooking the creek.

Near dark, I had my closest call. On a cast up into the bank, a freight train underwater seemed to home in on my frog. It grabbed it, hooked up and wrestled the fish close to the boat, where the fish and lure stuck in a lily pad, with it's head out of the water. Before we could get to the fish, it managed to throw the hook and escape.

I had another big blow up on my frog a few minutes later. Mike insisted it had the lure sideways in it's mouth, but you couldn't prove it to me. I got at least three tries at the fish before it stopped responding. We left to go back to Slavin's Landing a few minutes later with the sun going down.

Reflections on Fishing

Yesterday was the day for the annualish pilgrimage to Mattawoman Creek for a Snakehead/Bass fishing trip. Tom and I met Capt. Mike Starrett of Indian Head Charters guide service at Slavins Landing at 3 PM for chicken and ribs from the local Korean barbecue (part of the experience) and launched shortly there after

Mike and Tom topping off their hydration. Note the pile of rods on the right, each pre-rigged for a particular type of fishing.

We spent the first part of the afternoon chasing the wily Northern Snakehead, using frog imitations. We got several strikes from what appeared to be big snakeheads, but never got to set the hook. I even missed one that jumped part way out of the water to grab a bait dangling from a lily pad. Shortly afterwards, a pop up thunderstorm blew in and drenched us to the skin (sorry, I had to put the camera away).

Soon after the storm we switched to top water poppers, and concentrated on Large Mouth Bass. I caught the first . . .

And Tom caught the second. A very ambitious little guy who attacked a popper not much smaller than itself.

 Mike extracts the popper from the mouth of another one that attempted to inhale it. It came out without blood, either the fish's, or Mike's so the operation was a success

The upper end of Mattawoman Creek is one of the true gems of the Chesapeake Bay. Do you see it?

There it is. It got upset, squawked loudly at us, and eventually flew off in disgust at having to share his fishing hole

In the failing daylight, we switched back to plastic frogs for a while, and Tom caught this fat one.

Eventually the sun did go down, and it was time to idle back down to Slavins

Snakeheads!

I went on a snakehead fishing trip today yesterday. I'll fill some text in later..

I have had this trip on the books since early winter sometime.  I signed up for trip to catch Northern Snakeheads (and pesky Largemouth Bass) with charter Captain and friend, Mike Starrett, who runs Indian Head charters, and who runs trips for snakeheads, bass, crappie and Blue Catfish (to name a few) while working full time at a so-called real job.  Here is the bass/snakehead boat ready to launch into Matawoman Creek, Maryland.  Note the front casting platform, and the huge pile of fishing rods (only two of which were mine).  Also along was another friend, Tom, who I've fished with for almost 25 years now.

Mattawoman Creek is one of the true gems of the Chesapeake.  Located shockingly close to Washington DC, it is a large tidal stream off the freshwater portion of the Potomac, largely undeveloped, and a maze of lily pads, Wild Rice and Pickerel Weed.  There is a kayak concession at Slavin's Landing, if you insist on seeing it the hard way.

It's an excellent area for watching the eagles and Ospreys, as the abundance of fish supports a bumper crop of both.

Tom caught the first and second fish.  The first was a small bass, which went unphotographed.  Then we switch gears, and went to throwing big frog imitations up into to weeds, and he caught the first snakehead.  About 21 inches and 3 lbs (despite Tom's effort to make it appear longer).  Getting them out of the thick weeds can be a trick.

I got my first, and so far only snakehead a few minutes later.  They were nearly identical in size, to the point that when it came time to clean them, we didn't know which was which.

We kept fishing the same "weedless frogs" on up into the creek, and into shallow water.  We both lost what were probably snakeheads, and both caught some of those pesky green things...

This one was particularly amusing.  I threw the "frog" (which you can see in the picture) over a couple clumps of weeds.  It must have landed in the mouth of the this bass, because for a few seconds I thought I was just fighting the weeds.

We stayed until just about dark, and continued to get hits and fish.  This shot shows the "Belt of Venus" over the lily pad, wild rice and woods of Mattawoman Creek.

Finally, Mike picked up a rod and showed us how it was done.

Doomed! The Bay is Doomed!

But aren't we all, in the long run? The talk of the bay newsfeed today is that the underwater grasses (aka submerged aquatic vegetation, SAV) underperformed expectations 2 years in a row. From MDE, Lingering Impacts from Extreme Weather Events Affect Chesapeake Bay Underwater Grasses in 2020

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) reports a third consecutive year of underwater grass loss in Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay in 2020. During the annual survey, 34,882 acres of underwater grasses were mapped in Maryland, representing 44% of the state’s 2025 restoration target and 30% of the ultimate restoration goal of 114,065 acres.

Record high rainfall and stream flows into the Chesapeake Bay in 2018 and 2019 led to higher levels of nutrient and sediment pollution, changes in salinity, and poorer water clarity in many of Maryland’s waterways. Habitat conditions remained poor in 2020, and underwater grass abundance declined 13% overall from the previous year.

After years of significant gains, more than 3,000 acres of underwater grasses were lost in the mid-Bay region, specifically the lower Chester River, Eastern Bay, the mouth of Choptank River, and the Little Choptank River. These declines were primarily in widgeon grass, a species that can rapidly increase or decrease from year to year with changes in water quality.

As usual, we find that weather conditions exert the most influence over year to year variation in the seagrasses. 

Some areas of Maryland’s portion of the Bay showed improvements in underwater grass abundance. The iconic beds in Tangier Sound and the Susquehanna Flats, along with those on the Potomac River, including Mattawoman and Piscataway creeks, increased in 2020.

Underwater grasses were observed in the Wicomico River on the Eastern Shore for the first time since the survey began in 1984.

“Efforts underway by Maryland and our Bay partners to reduce nutrients in our waterways remain critical to our goal of increasing submerged aquatic vegetation in the Bay,” Maryland Natural Resources Secretary Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio said. “While extreme weather has had a real impact on our state’s underwater grasses, SAV are aiding in improving water quality and do provide important habitat in many of our waterways.”

“The improvements seen in Tangier Sound and on the Susquehanna Flats highlight the resilience of Maryland’s large, stable underwater grass beds, and emphasize the importance of protecting and preserving them,” said Becky Raves Golden, Living Resource Assessment Program Manager for DNR. “Many of the losses observed in 2020 were in areas where gains had been made in recent years, suggesting that recovering populations are more affected by the stress of poorer water quality than stable, resilient beds. There is still work to do to mitigate the impacts of multiple stressors on Maryland’s recovering underwater grasses.”

Despite the overall decline in statewide underwater grass abundance, underwater grasses in all or part of four Maryland rivers surpassed their restoration goals. These included the Northeast River at 122%; the Bush River at 127%; the middle Chester River at 287%; and the tidal fresh portion of the Chester River at 16,554% (the percentage of the goal attained is so high due to a very small segment restoration goal). An additional six river segments in Maryland reached 75% or more of their restoration goals, including the northern Chesapeake Bay, the upper Chesapeake Bay, Gunpowder River, Northeast River, Mattawoman Creek, and Wicomico River.

I also appreciate the recognition that because the weather conditions have differing local effects, and different species of seagrass respond differently, that there is substantial regional variation in the response.

Other flavors of coverage at Bay Journal - Chesapeake Bay grass beds decline for second year in a row, Baltimore Sun - Underwater grass abundance, 'critical' to the Chesapeake Bay's ecosystem, is down but may be stabilizing, Chesapeake Bay Program - Acreage of underwater grasses in the Chesapeake Bay decline for second straight year

In Praise of the Fearful Frankenfish

Stop killing the Potomac’s snakehead, an opinion at the paywalled WaPo:

My brother and I had been fishing under an exit ramp to Interstate 495 on a tributary of the Potomac River when we heard shouts from my son and nephew. Finally, someone had hooked a snakehead. We paddled our canoe as fast as we could toward my son’s canoe, where my nephew was battling a fish from the bow. It’s hard for non-anglers to understand how riveted the four of us were on the outcome of the fight. We would vividly remember the details of the duel years six years later.

My nephew Danny recounts, “We were out of our minds with excitement! Every time I would get the fish near the boat, it would sprint away, tearing out yards of line.” Eventually, my son Michael jumped into the waist-deep water and scooped the eight-pound fish into our landing net and then into his canoe, where it thrashed for several minutes before he dispatched it with several blows to its bony head.

Our response to a snakehead hookup was typical. Check out the Department of Natural Resources’ Maryland Angler’s Log. Fights with snakehead are described as “amazing” and runs as “exhilarating.”

Unfortunately, this fish is in decline in some portions of the Potomac because for more than a decade, fish and game authorities on both sides of the river have asked fishers to kill every snakehead they catch. The time has come to end that practice, designate the snakehead a game fish and limit the number of snakehead that can be kept.

The request to kill them was once reasonable. After all, this is an invasive fish. It was first spotted in a Maryland pond in 2002. Two years later, it was in the Potomac. Its population grew rapidly. Authorities feared it might destroy the largemouth bass fishery that many anglers enjoy. But that has not happened, nor does it seem that it will.

John Odenkirk of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries said last year that the bass population in the Potomac River system has recently increased. According to Joseph Love of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the snakehead population peaked in 2012. It’s about the same today, but in areas that have seen a lot of fishing pressure, the population has shrunk. Fishing guide Michael Starrett of Indian Head Charters has seen the number of snakehead his clients have caught plummet from 249 in 2013 to only six as of June 22.

And I'm proud to say I was witness to one of those six:

For my money, the largemouth is not near the game fish that the snakehead is. Snakehead get almost twice the size of bass, fight much harder and taste better — much better. Plus, they often lurk in less than a foot of water, which means their wake can be seen racing toward top-water lures before the fish explodes on it. Take my word for it, this is what anglers live for. Now that it is reasonably certain that the snakehead is not going to ruin the Potomac’s ecosystem, anglers should not be catching, killing and dumping these magnificent fish back into the river. That’s a bloody business — you usually have to cut off their heads — that should be done only if absolutely necessary.

If the snakehead population drastically increases after it is named a game fish, the death penalty could be brought back. These fish are vulnerable to human predation. Starrett says bow hunters fishing at night with powerful lights are particularly successful at killing snakehead, because they make easy targets as they lie on the surface of shallow water. Other anglers snag snakehead as they migrate upstream. Each spring, hundreds of anglers with stiff rods, florescent line and huge gang hooks line the banks near Little Falls waiting to snag spawning snakehead, a technique that is illegal for all fish except the picked-upon snakehead.

We caught only that one snakehead during our trip in 2012. When we got to the dock hours later, four other fishermen gathered around our cooler to get a look at our catch. When I opened the lid, the snakehead sprang a foot in the air, scattering the eight of us. This die-hard deserves to live and flourish in the Potomac.

Having fished Mattawoman Creek with Mike Starrett almost yearly for about 10 years, I have to say, either snakeheads are awfully hard to catch (probably true) or not in sufficient numbers to be a real threat to the ecosystem. If my last trip was any indication., snakeheads and bass coexist quite nicely, each eating the others young.

Snakeheads Conquer the Rappahannock River

Snakeheads slithering up Rappahannock

John Odenkirk, a fisheries biologist with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ Fredericksburg office, will talk about the invasion as part of the Friends of the Rappahannock’s annual meeting May 20. He’s been studying snakeheads since they were first found in the Potomac River in 2004.

Since then, they’ve been migrating downstream. By last summer, the invasive fish had reached the mouth of the river.

Odenkirk said in an interview with The Free Lance–Star last June that it was only a matter of time before the fish made it to the Rappahannock.

That happened the following month, when an angler caught one in Ruffins Pond along Routes 2 and 17. The waterway feeds into Massaponax Creek, a tributary of the Rappahannock.

Shortly after that, a game department sampling crew caught another one and saw a few others, Odenkirk recalled in an interview last week.

“Within a week, an angler caught one in Massaponax Creek,” where it enters the river. “At that point, it was, ‘Wow. The cat’s out of the bag,’” he said.

The Rappahannock is, as you can see from the map, the next major river on the western side of the Chesapeake south the the Potomac.  The presence of the Northern Snakeheads in the Potomac, especially in the upper, fresher end like Dogue Creek and Mattawoman Creeks has been well established for a couple of years now.  It was hoped that the saltier waters near it's mouth would inhibit their spread down the Bay.  However, it seems that they tolerate salt well enough to make it past the barrier.  There's not much left to do but take advantage of them.  I hear they're delicious.

New Park Land for Slower Maryland?

 Bay Journal, Federal wildlife refuge looks to expand in Southern Maryland

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in early March that it is looking to conserve up to 30,000 acres of land over the next 30 years in five counties: Prince George’s, Anne Arundel, Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s.

Officials envision creating a “landscape scale” refuge similar to the Rappahannock River Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia, said Dan Murphy, chief of habitat restoration and conservation in the service’s Chesapeake Bay Field Office. Established in 1996, that refuge encompasses about 10,000 acres in a series of mostly unconnected tracts across five counties along the river corridor.

As was done for the Virginia refuge, USFWS officials plan to identify a large acquisition boundary in Southern Maryland, then target the most ecologically important parcels within it for protection by either buying them from willing sellers or paying them to surrender development rights via conservation easements.

The move comes as development presses in on the Patuxent Research Refuge, the only national wildlife refuge in the region. Its 13,000 acres spanning Prince George’s and Anne Arundel counties sit midway between Baltimore and the District of Columbia.

Prince George’s County is looking to develop 97 acres of forest and ponds between the refuge and Bowie State University.

Just last year, an effort by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to sell 105 mostly wooded acres bordering the refuge got put on hold after refuge supporters protested.

Murphy said the announcement of the regional refuge plan wasn’t triggered by any specific threats to the Patuxent refuge but more out of a desire to preserve critical habitats that are in danger of being degraded or destroyed. The idea, he said, grew out of former President Obama’s 2009 executive order directing all federal agencies to develop a coordinated strategy for protecting and restoring the Bay.

Over the last dozen years, USFWS staff have identified roughly 180,000 acres of ecologically valuable land in the region that is currently unprotected, Murphy explained. At the same time, he said, they recognized that the Patuxent Refuge was being increasingly hemmed in by development and in jeopardy of becoming an “ecological island.”

The service says it is primarily concerned with safeguarding native animals and plants that are in jeopardy of disappearing from the region. All of them face the threat of habitat loss from land use changes, climate change, competition from invasive species and other external population stressors.

The five counties targeted by the USFWS plan were among the fastest growing in Maryland over the last decade, trailing only Howard and Frederick counties.

Murphy said the USFWS plans to focus on protecting habitat in the watersheds of Mattawoman and Nanjemoy creeks, Zekiah Swamp and the St. Mary’s and Patuxent rivers. They’re also keen to protect more of Calvert County’s crumbling Bayshore cliffs, which are home to endangered Puritan tiger beetles.

The Puritan Tiger Beetle has been used as an excuse to prevent cliff protection here at Calvert Cliffs. A house was condemned because they weren't allowed to shore up the cliff that was encroaching on the house.

In addition to the tiger beetles, the five-county area is home to several other endangered or threatened species. Dwarf wedgemussels hang on in Nanjemoy Creek and McIntosh Run in Charles County.

Increasingly rare plants, namely swamp pink and a flowering legume called sensitive joint-vetch, grow in the region’s remaining marshes, while endangered northern long-eared bats lurk in its forests. The tidal waters also provide critical habitat for Atlantic and shortnose sturgeon.

The service hopes over the next 30 years to protect about one sixth of that vulnerable acreage, using the federal Land and Water Conservation and Migratory Bird funds. Those funds draw revenue from sales of federal duck hunting stamps, wildlife refuge entrance fees, import duties on arms and ammunition and the sale of offshore oil leases.

Lands purchased to become part of a national wildlife refuge will be removed from the property tax rolls of the counties in question, but the USFWS pointed out that it annually reimburses localities for some of its lost real estate tax revenue.

"some"

I think I'd have to see what tracts of land they have their eyes on, and how they intend to restrict their usage before I decide whether it's a good or bad idea.

 

Bay Grasses Doing OK

 MDDNR, Maryland Reports Steady Underwater Grass Abundance in Chesapeake Bay for 2023

Underwater grass abundance–a key indicator of water quality and habitat–remained steady in 2023 in the state’s portion of Chesapeake Bay, reaching 37,770 acres, according to data released this week by the Chesapeake Bay Program and Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Overall, an estimated 82,937 acres of underwater grasses, also called submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), were distributed throughout Chesapeake Bay and its tidal tributaries in 2023, a 7% increase over 2022 acreage.

In Maryland, all or part of four rivers surpassed their restoration goals. These include the Northeast River at 109%, the Upper Chester River at 432%, the Honga River at 138%, and the Wicomico River at 270%. An additional three segments reached 75 percent or more of their restoration goals, including the Northern Chesapeake Bay that encompasses the Susquehanna Flats at 86%, the Bush River at 83%, and Mattawoman Creek at 98% of their goals.

“I’m glad to see the Bay’s underwater grasses continue to recover following losses in 2019, and despite some declines in the upper Bay, the Susquehanna Flats are holding strong and the news is positive,” said Brooke Landry, Maryland DNR’s Program Chief of Living Resource Assessment and Chair of Chesapeake Bay Program SAV Workgroup. “ I am confident that we will continue to make progress on restoration, especially with species like Horned pondweed and Sago pondweed becoming so abundant in the mid-Bay. Their skyrocketing expansion in recent years, according to observations that my colleagues and I are making along with data collected by Chesapeake Bay SAV Watchers program volunteers, is exciting to see since both plants offer such beneficial ecosystem services.”

Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV), also known as underwater grasses, play a critical role in maintaining the health of the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. These grasses absorb and filter out nutrients and sediment, reduce shoreline erosion, provide habitat and protection for important species such as blue crabs and largemouth bass, support and sustain migrating waterfowl, and mitigate climate impacts.

The annual underwater grass survey was conducted by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science between May and November 2023. While the acreage falls short of Maryland’s 2025 restoration goal of 79,800 acres, airspace restrictions prevented complete surveys of the Upper and Middle Potomac River, including Piscataway Creek. If these areas had been fully mapped, observations suggest that Maryland’s SAV acreage would have been higher in 2023.

A significant loss of freshwater grasses in the upper Bay in 2023 offset an equally significant expansion of brackish water grasses in the mid- and lower portions of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. The loss of freshwater grasses did not extend to the iconic Susquehanna Flats grass beds, which continued to expand and now cover over 11,000 acres. Grass beds in the mid-Bay were bolstered by the continued expansion of Sago pondweed (Stuckenia pectinata), a species that doesn’t get much attention in the grand scheme of Chesapeake Bay SAV dynamics. According to observations made by Bay scientists and data collected by Chesapeake SAV Watchers volunteers, Sago pondweed is possibly the most abundant species in several Maryland rivers on both the eastern and western shores, including the Severn and Choptank Rivers, and Eastern Bay.

Further south and into slightly saltier water, widgeon grass (Ruppia maritima) continued to recover from major losses in 2019. Both widgeon grass and eelgrass (Zostera marina) are common in Tangier Sound, where grass beds gained 1,285 acres of SAV between 2022 and 2023.

From what I've seen in Tangier Sound this year, those numbers should hold up.  

New Maryland Record Snakehead?

Maryland Man Sets State Record for Biggest Snakehead Caught

An Upper Marlboro man has set a record in Maryland after catching a 17-pound northern snakehead fish.

Michael Meade caught the fish with a bow and arrow in the marshes of Mattawoman Creek on Oct. 16. Meade says he weighed the fish on a bathroom scale when he got home and discovered it was over 17 pounds.

“It was about 10:30 at night when I brought it onboard, and it was the biggest snakehead I had ever seen,” Meade told the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. “When I got home, I stepped on a bathroom scale with the fish, and it was over 17 pounds. So, I put it in a bucket of ice water and went looking for a certified scale.”

The next day, he took it to the Gray Brothers Market Store in Marbury where he had its weight confirmed by a certified scale.

According to the DNR, the 17.49-pounder set a state sport fish record. . .

However, my snakehead fishing buddy Capt. Mike Starrett claims to have caught two larger in Maryland waters, 17.5 and 18.3 lbs on hook and line, which were "released by accident."

Bay News Today

Seems to be mostly about how Maryland purchased about 10,000 acres of land.

January 2011 -- Maryland has surpassed its goal to preserve 9,700 acres in 2010. The state permanently protected 12,812 acres last year, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

The land was conserved through state Program Open Space acquisitions and conservation easements purchased through the Rural Legacy Program and the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program.

Land conserved in 2010 includes:

• A site at Patuxent River Park that provides fishing access for people with disabilities
• More than 17 miles of streamside buffers along the Chesapeake Bay and its streams, creeks and rivers
• 773 acres of ecologically valuable and severely threatened land near Mattawoman Creek

Maryland tracks its environmental goals using BayStat, an online tool that assesses, coordinates and targets restoration and conservation programs.

 Also in the news, Maryland budget news, the state is facing a $2.4 Billion (with a B)  dollar shortfall.  Coincidence?  Ask a state worker facing facing furloughs next year.

The March of the Snakeheads Continues

Northern Snakehead caught in Rhode River

Late last week, a Northern Snakehead was caught by a Smithsonian Institution team seining in the Rhode River.  The adult female was 23 inches long and was captured "near the head waters of the Rhode River" which I presume to be near Muddy Creek, there being no real river entering the West River.

The Rhode River is the location of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, on the outskirts of Edgewater, Maryland.  It was captured by a team of scientists from the Marine Invasions Laboratory, which, appropriately enough studies the transfer of marine organism from their native to foreign environments via a number of pathways.  The group (shown at the right) included two full time SERC scientists and three summer interns.

With the appearance of the snakehead this far down from it's closest known occurrence, in the Northeast River, we can be fairly sure that Snakeheads have at least had a chance to colonize all the low salinity tributaries in between, and will likely start showing up in greater numbers in upcoming years.  With a snakehead having been killed near Pt. Lookout as well, it seems likely that snakeheads will also have a good chance of colonizing any low salinity tributaries on the Maryland's Western Shore, and I see no barrier to them colonizing the Eastern Shore tributaries as well.

At this point, it would seem the best we can hope for is that the snakehead will fit into the system without displacing any native fish.  So far, results from the Potomac River, where the snakehead invasion got an early start, seems promising.  Snakeheads have been caught in decent numbers in several of the tributaries there without, at least so far, displacing any natives.  The one fish that the snakehead most resembles in shape and habit is the Bowfin (sometimes called a grindel or blackfish). Not a particularly common catch, it is considered a gamefish, but not a particularly fine food fish.  Snakeheads are reputedly very fine eating fish.

I would be remiss in a post on snakeheads if I did not post a picture of Capt. Mike Starrett's giant that he caught just this weekend in Mattawoman Creek, off the Potomac River, south of Washington D.C.  At 30 inches and 17 lbs, this was one big fish.  This is the fourth (or more) snakeheads that Mike or his clients have caught in the past four days of fishing.

Electricity is for the Birds

Just ask the people in Staten Island

Scrapped Plans for Power Lines Protect Habitats from Energy Development

Energy companies had a plan to carry power to the Northeast: Two transmission lines buzzing with electricity and running 425 miles through four states—West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. Building the massive towers and stringing the high-voltage lines, however, would require cutting down 8,600 acres of forested wetlands and upland habitat, and the route would pass through Maryland’s Mattawoman Creek Important Bird Area. The environmental cost seemed too high to Audubon and a number of other conservation groups, especially since the demand for energy could be met with increased efficiency and other measures. In August, bowing to pressure from the groups, the energy companies scrapped the plans, thus protecting thousands of acres from development and preventing up to eight million tons of carbon from being released into the atmosphere every year.

I hope they enjoy freezing in the dark the next time the wind blows.

David Curson, director of bird conservation for Audubon Maryland-DC, submitted comments on one of the projects, pointing out that the wood thrush, the prothonotary warbler, and the Kentucky warbler—three neotropical migrants with declining populations—would have been particularly affected. Environmentalists also expressed concern for the potential effect on water quality in Chesapeake Bay. The arguments led to a new analysis, which showed a decrease in demand and other options for supplying electricity.

It's funny how the new analysis came out just the way they wanted it to.

Instead of building massive and expensive infrastructure, the utility companies will meet the region’s energy needs by paying high-demand companies to reduce their electricity use for specified amounts of time. “The decision hinged on looking at the role of the energy-efficiency programs and the state energy policies, and asking that they be examined,” says Kreitler. “It’s a precedent.”

I'll believe that Northern Virginia decreases its power demand when I see it, and not before.  Maybe if they exported all their high paying government jobs to North Dakota.

Remember, they don't love nature as much as they hate people.

Reflections on a Fishing Trip - It's Not All About the Fish

Charlie

Charlie and I had a snakehead/Large Mouth Bass fishing trip in Mattawoman Creek with Capt. Dave Snelling of Indianhead Charters yesterday afternoon.

Capt. Dave

Fishing was poor (no fish were landed, Charlie played briefly with a little Snakehead, and I missed the hook set on a decent bass), but the scenery was spectacular as always:

Snakeheads, Scourge of the Potomac or the Next Great Gamefish?

Yesterday, Candy Thompson had an article in the Baltimore Sun about an upcoming Federal plan to deal with the invasive Northern Snakehead.  In fairly recent times, dating back to about 2002 with a in an incident in a pond in Crofton, snakeheads have been popping up in places around the mid-Atlantic.  They are thought to have descended from fish brought from China as food fish, released to grow and reproduce by well intentioned, but ill informed connoisseurs of authentic Chinese food.  Their flesh is reputedly quite tasty.

The snakehead is a voracious predator, with a mouth full of stout peg like teeth, a torpedo shaped body with a camouflage pattern, evolved for stealth attack from concealment, and a healthy, and nondiscriminating appetite.  It is feared that the snakehead will compete with and even consume the native gamefish, such as largemouth bass, with whom they share the same general habitat.

They are apparently pretty well established in the Potomac River, and by the speed at which the number of reports by fishermen, and government investigators from Maryland, Virginia and PRFC have increased, there is a general consensus that there is really no practical means of exterminating them, now. Thus, one would have to conclude that this is a successful, and likely undesirable invasive species. Maryland law mandates that any snakeheads caught while fishing should be destroyed.  A bit like trying to empty the river with a dixie cup.

There is, however a growing appreciation of the snakehead as a gamefish.  Growing up to 4 ft long, they can be caught using many of the same tactics as largemouth bass; top water plugs, live bait, flies etc.  A friend of mine, Mike Starrett, who guides out of the Potomac (Indian Head Charters) reports that his clients have caught a number of them, and they are tough fighting adversaries.  Others (non-orientals) report that they are tasty too.  So, is the snakehead a scourge, an opportunity, or both?  All I know is I want to catch one.  And I'll eat it when I do.

Capt. Mike and a happy client with a snakehead caught in Mattawoman Creek, off the Potomac River.

Hat tip to Bill Curry.