The striped bass, known around the Tidewater as the rockfish, is one of the most popular of all Eastern, saltwater, game fish. Found along the Atlantic Coast from Nova Scotia to Florida, rockfish have a lifespan of up to 30 years and have been know to exceed of 100 pounds. The current Maryland rod-and-reel record is 67 pounds and eight ounces. Maryland rockfish are spawned in the freshwater reaches of Chesapeake Bay tributaries and remain in the Bay until the age of eight or nine, when they...

How did you fall in love? That’s a question worth dwelling on. Girls at least — perhaps boys, too, though they’ll never tell — grow up dreaming of how they’ll fall in love. Most of us eventually achieve our own love story, some of us many times over. Common as the love story is, it never grows stale. An aging couple joins me at the table at a bed and breakfast, and, before our coffee cups are drained, she’s reported their love story, with him adding Amens!...

On February 2, Punxsutawney Phil saw his/no shadow, answering the question of whether our weather will be wintry. Yes, for about six more weeks. But he begged the real question: Why let a groundhog decide? European folklore tells of sacred animals like bears, badgers and hedgehogs predicting the weather. Arriving in North America in the 19th century, Germans brought this tradition with them, giving the job to the animal that most resembled those back home: the groundhog. Other elements of the...

Each year, when Bay Weekly’s resident rodent cinephile Chesapeake Chuck comes out of hibernation on Groundhog Day, he presents his movie picks, knowing we’re in for six more weeks of homebound winter.  This year, Chuck found inspiration while watching the Academy Award nominations and decided to revisit the classics now — before the 2011 Oscars add more films to the pantheon. What makes a classic? Chuck selected two authoritative lists: The American Film Institute’s...