Regulars (All)

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 9/20/12

A Whopper of a Problem

Maryland commercial fishermen owe DNR $3 million

When the watermen’s associations concurred with the legislation passed last May in House Bill 1372, they might not have realized the eventual financial impact it would have on their members. It has proven to be a $3 million whopper. Under that bill, Department of Natural Resources’ costs for administration and enforcement would be paid for by the recreational and commercial fishing sectors, each covering its own area. The recreational sector...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 9/13/12

Let the Night Sky Test Your Eyes

The Milky Way is waiting overhead

The moon wanes to new phase Saturday the 15th. While you may be able to see a razor-thin cresecent low in the east before sunrise Friday, the moon won’t reappear until Tuesday, low in the west for less than an hour after sunset. But given the chance, you’ll want to catch it, forming a wide obtuse triangle with Saturn slightly higher to the right and Mars higher still to the left. The next night, the scene repeats itself, except the growing moon is now the highest point of the three...

Article - The Bay Gardener by Dr. Francis Gouin; by Dr. Francis Gouin - 9/13/12

A Bean that Can Stand the Heat

Gita is my recommendation

A Bay Weekly reader complained to me that she has not been able to harvest string beans all summer long. First, I reminded her that saying string beans is showing her age. When I helped my mother prepare green beans for canning, I had to snip the end followed by pulling a long green string from the inner curve of the bean. Strings have not been a problem with green beans for the past 45 years, and the name was changed to snap beans. Call them what you...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 9/13/12

The Season of Hungry Fish

Saltwater visitors add to the fun

The autumnal equinox is not yet upon us, but fishing patterns are already changing. September 22 marks the date when the length of day and night are briefly equal, 12 hours each of sunlight and dark. Because the earth’s axis is tilted in relation to the sun, the big bright orb will soon be transiting ever lower on the horizon and our days will be getting shorter, the nights longer. This will bring less of the sun’s energy to the northern hemisphere. Thus the...

Article - The Dish; by Lisa Knoll - 9/13/12

Who’s the Fish in Fish Tacos?

The cocktail party conversation turned to local seafood snobbery. Several big-name restaurants highlighting seafood had opened and closed rather swiftly. McCormick & Schmick’s and Real Seafood (both in Annapolis) failed, it was decided, because they thought they could do seafood better than we can. I’m not sure if that explanation works, but I am sure that in Chesapeake Country we take our seafood seriously. For many specialties we can, and should, shop...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by - 9/6/12

Long Ago Separated at Birth

This week’s moon visits two star clusters a billion years apart

Before dawn Friday morning, the moon appears just a few degrees ahead of the orange star Aldebaran, the fiery eye of Taurus the bull. To either side of the moon, you’ll find the two brightest star clusters. To the east is the Y-shaped Hyades cluster, or the face of the bull. To the moon’s west is the Pleiades cluster, or the seven sisters, which marks the bull’s shoulder. The Hyades is the brighter of the two clusters. On a dark night you may discern a...

Article - Sporting Life by Dennis Doyle; by Dennis Doyle - 9/6/12

September’s Top-Water Bite

Casting into the shallows is my fishing favorite

The conditions were finally right. I was fishing along a tree-lined, rip-rapped shoreline that ran for hundreds of yards just outside the mouth of the Severn. Interrupted only by the occasional stone erosion jetty that eased out underwater every hundred yards or so, this area had proven a hot shallow-water rockfish hunting ground this time of year in the past, especially at first light. Fishfinder While some anglers have located small pods of rockfish feeding up in the rivers or in...

Article - The Bay Gardener by Dr. Francis Gouin; by Dr. Francis Gouin - 9/6/12

Suicide in the Garden

Here’s how to help your plants avoid self-strangulation

When I visit friends’ homes, being asked to diagnose plant problems is not uncommon. I entered one friend’s front door only to be escorted outside to diagnose the cause of a groundcover juniper’s death. My friend had planted three junipers in 2009; one had died in June. I told him that I would have to dig it up and perform an autopsy. He found it hard to believe that I could not diagnose the problem by simply looking at it. I replied that I could give...

Article - The Dish; by Lisa Edler Knoll - 9/6/12

Bringing in September

Three novelties and one old favorite

Returning to school and work after the Labor Day weekend, you’d think food news would be about lunchboxes and crock-pot recipes. Not so in Chesapeake Country. Food events this week are about novelties plus the return of an old favorite. Fresh Market at Annapolis Harbour Center hosts a Hatch Chili Fest Saturday, Sept. 8, from 10am to 3pm. Hatch chilies, grown in the small town of Hatch, New Mexico, are harvested and for sale only from late August...

Article - Sky Watch by J. Alex Knoll; by J. Alex Knoll - 8/30/12

Just How Rare Is a Blue Moon?

Not as rare — or as old — as you might think

Friday morning marks August’s second full moon, a blue moon. While the term blue moon dates back hundreds of years, its meaning of the second full moon in a single month was crafted in the 20th century. Its early usage you might hear in the phrase I’ll believe that when the moon is blue. In 1937, the Maine Farmer’s Almanac refered to a blue moon as the third of four full moons in any three-month season. For the Almanac, the blue moon was a placeholder in...