First week figures for Prettyboy show 56 deer taken (eight antlered and 48 antlerless) on 5,880 huntable acres. Loch Raven, as expected, is producing high numbers of deer so far.

Bay anglers look skyward

It’s bird time on the Bay. And no, we are not talking the Orioles. Fall signals the time when small, medium and some big fish concentrate on breaking baitfish, with anglers signaled to this by terns and gulls hovering over bait and diving on the bits left by voracious stripers and blues.

Both stripers and blues are heading out of the Chesapeake Bay, with some stripers hunkering down on the bottom for the winter or short-stopping at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel in Virginia for that late fall and winter fishing season.

Right now, good areas are everywhere, according to Department of Natural Resources fish tally keeper Keith Lockwood. Live-lining with spot and some trolling still works, with some stripers to almost 40 inches being caught throughout the Bay.

Look for breaking fish from Love Point above the Bay Bridge right down to the Maryland-Virginia line and probably south. Poplar Island offers some of the breaking fish action of decades ago, when it was the place to go each fall. The best action is in the early morning and late evening.

The fish are chasing bay anchovies and small menhaden, with casting surface lures or deep jigging the best. Jigging deep is the best way to get the big fish that often hold below the surface feeders. Use lead head jigs with soft plastic tails. The only disadvantage of soft plastics is that small blues bite the tails off, making tail-less Sassy Shad and similar types useless. Take plenty of replacement plastics, or go with skirted bucktails.

Surface lures that work best are the ubiquitous Striper Swiper, Smack-It and similar saltwater chugger lures, or even big surface-ripped Rat-L-Traps and Cordell Spots.

A tip here for safe lure removal from toothy bluefish and quick release of stripers is to remove and replace the treble hooks. Use a heavy split ring to add a one-size-larger single tail hook like a Siwash Salmon style. To make it even easier, bend down the barb. Split ring pliers, available at all tackle shops, make this transition easy — but do it at home, not in a rocking boat.

Gunpowder trout ‘healthy’

It is not a fish fry, but for trout it is shocking. This is the time of year when DNR trout biologist Charlie Gougeon and crews shock area trout waters to check the health of the fish.

It is not exactly like the tasers used on TV’s “Cops,” but you get the idea. And it is not just done in our area but on each and every trout stream throughout the state by the regional fisheries managers.

An electric shocker waved through the water by the wading crew temporarily zaps any trout within four of five feet, which is then netted and put into a floating tank for later checking of its vital measurements and health before being released back to the stream.

Yep, the trout get a calming temporary anesthetic to keep them happy while being measured and having their vitals checked. That’s better than “Cops.”

The numbers will be crunched later, but on the Gunpowder earlier this week, the fish were looking good.

“My first impression is that they look really good and healthy,” said fisheries biologist and crew member Mark Staley. “The fish are in very nice condition.” Further impressions by the DNR and trout fishing volunteers on the mission are that there are more trout and also bigger trout than last year.

“These are quality fish,” Gougeon said, “and they look like good numbers.”

That bodes well for fall trout fishing with big streamers and terrestrials.

C. Boyd Pfeiffer is an internationally known sportsman and award-winning writer on fishing, hunting, and the outdoors. He can be reached at [email protected].