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February 10, 2025

Cambridge Spy

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Maryland deploys icebreaker to clear channels for watermen

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Maryland’s buoy tender/icebreaker A.V. SANDUSKY helped clear a channel in Grace Creek on Monday this week. DENNIS FORNEY PHOTO

Freezing temperatures, just taking a break now, have been clogging Eastern Shore creeks making it difficult for watermen to get out to public oyster bars.  It’s tough enough for them to make any money during the lean months of January and February without the added complication of ice.

One of Maryland’s fleet of buoy tender/ice breakers, A.V. SANDUSKY, deployed earlier this week out of Annapolis to open a few of the channels leading to the grounds where tongers and dredgers work.

In Grace Creek, where several watermen keep their boats and offload their catchers at PT Hambleton’s oyster and crabbing complex, a few of the watermen eased their vessels gingerly through the ice last week to reach the open waters of Broad Creek. The Sandusky’s arrival on Monday built on those efforts to further solve the problem and allow more watermen to ply their trade.

Gregg Bortz, media relations manager for Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources, provided additional information about the ice-breaking initiative:

“All of our boats have multiple purposes. During the year they are used to place navigation markers and buoys, assist with debris removal in the Bay, and other tasks. For ice breaking, the Sandusky’s primary areas of responsibility include Kent Narrows; Rock Hall; Chester River to Cedar Point; Miles River to St. Michaels; Eastern Bay and Tilghman Creek. But it also is used as needed elsewhere.

“Our boats are shallow draft so they can get into some smaller waterways that Coast Guard vessels can’t reach.

“The Sandusky,” said Bortz,“ is led by Captain Mike Simonsen. Our website has more information about the whole fleet: https://dnr.maryland.gov/boating/Pages/ice_breaking.aspx.”

The website indicates that the M/V A.V. SANDUSKY is an 80-foot vessel with 700 horsepower and icebreaking capability of eight inches. The site also adds that a new replacement vessel for the fleet is in the procurement process. “Areas of responsibility will include Knapps Narrows; Choptank River to Secretary; Broad Creek to Neavitt Wharf; Tred Avon River to USCG Station, Town Creek, Easton Point Landing; Cambridge Creek/Harbor, Little Choptank River, Slaughter Creek, Chapel Cove and Madison Bay.

Dennis Forney has been a publisher, journalist and columnist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972.  He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Bozman.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Deep freeze driving large numbers of Canada geese to Eastern Shore

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Dense flocks of Canada geese, like these in a Chesapeake Bay-front field near Tilghman Island, have been typical on the Eastern Shore during this cold January.

A survey of the 2024 nesting season on Quebec’s Ungava Peninsula for our Atlantic Flyway Canada geese recorded one of the lowest reproduction rates on record. Given that, why are we seeing so many more Canadas in our fields and waterways this year than we’ve seen in previous years?

The answer is obvious, but before we get to its nuances let’s step back a ways.

I’ve been traveling the roads of the Delmarva Peninsula’s mid-shore area for 60 years or so. It’s usually a triangular area including Chestertown on the north, Lewes and Rehoboth Beach on the coastal east, and the St. Michaels/Tilghman Island area–locally called the Bay Hundred–on the western edge.

My old man used to drive us kids out to Remington Farms, near Rock Hall, to see great flocks of ducks and geese filling winter fields.  Seeing them scratched some primordial itch in his soul. There were years of tremendous numbers.  Other years, not so much.  But the annual migration was always worth noticing.

On the coastal side of the triangle, winter typically brings far greater numbers of snow geese than Canadas.

The tradition he established has continued, but on the larger scale mentioned above. This year is remarkable. Field after field of thousands of geese. Happy hunters blasting away during a significantly limited season further confirm the large numbers.

The reason, says Josh Homyack of Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources, is all around us. He’s a waterfowl biologist and leader of the state’s wildlife and heritage section.

“We have a real winter this year,” he said this week. “Prolonged cold weather to the north is leading to lots of movement of geese and other birds.  We have our usual migrant flocks in addition to flocks of other migrating birds coming down which in past years have stopped in the states north of us. Even resident geese in Pennsylvania and New York become migrants in this kind of weather and are heading our way to further swell local numbers.”

An interesting side note: Resident geese tend to be larger, he said, a subspecies brought by humans to this region in the early and mid 1900s when it was still legal to use live decoys. But back to the numbers.

“The midwinter count for Maryland is just finishing. It should show more geese than in the past several years. The geese getting stacked up here now represent several different migrant groups,” said Homyack.

It’s all a matter of food. For centuries, Delmarva Peninsula has provided optimal winter feeding grounds for migrating Canadas and snows. That behavior, and its annual repetition by adults and each year’s newborn birds, imprints deeply.

With that comes the equally imprinted culture associated with geese as an important and reliable winter food source for humans, dating back to Native American groups who made their homes here. Associated hunting, artwork, cooking and honking of geese and swans flying over night and day in the winter add to the culture and soundtrack of our lives.

They all contribute to the mystique of this region, known all the way back to 1600s’ English explorer John Smith, as a land of pleasant living.

But with so many geese here this winter, why does Maryland have a more limited goose hunting season than last year?

The answer, as mentioned above, lies on Quebec’s Ungava Peninsula, 1,500 miles north of Delmara. There, between the shores of Hudson Bay and Ungava Bay and Canada’s maritime provinces, geese making their long spring return flight will settle on ancestral nesting grounds to raise the next generation of our Atlantic Flyway Canada goose population.

“It’s subarctic,” said Homyack. “Tundra and rocks, a few widely spaced Innuit villages, not much else.  The geese have to be nesting by late May or early June, and hatched by the end of June, if the new young will be strong enough to make that 1,500-mile return flight to the upper shore starting in September. Late springs like the last 10 to 12 years can really impact nesting success.

“Not wonderful,” is how Homyack characterizes the 2024 nesting season. “Scientists up there count breeding pairs of geese and overall populations during the nesting season.  “Through early-August banding up there, when molting geese, who can’t fly, can also be checked for age and sex, we check the ratio of young to adult to assess how things went during the nesting season. The past year showed us one of the lowest years on record for reproduction.”

That’s why waterfowl managers at the state and federal levels remained conservative and cautious for this year’s hunting regulations.

Numbers show 88,890 breeding pairs counted in 2024 compared to 115,328 in 2023. The estimated population of Atlantic Flyway Canada geese, from those same surveys, showed 606,672 individual birds in 2024 compared to 611,590 in 2023.  The total population count of 1,316,000 in the 2022 survey demonstrates the wide variations possible from one nesting season to the next.

The smallest total population estimates came in the earliest years of the Ungava Peninsula surveys.  The 1995 survey found 33,995 breeding pairs; the 1993 total population count came in at an alarming 210,000 Canadas in the Atlantic flyway.

Based on those populations over the decades, hunting seasons and limits have also varied radically.  There have been years when there were two- and more seasons with four-birds-a-day limits.  That compares to this year’s 30-day season in Maryland with a two bird limit.

Homyack said Maryland’s midwinter counts tend to be unreliable in terms of the total flyway population and are heavily weather-dependent as to where birds will be concentrated.

For those reasons, it’s the breeding ground surveys that are used to guide hunting dates and limits, not the midwinter counts.

“But for now and from a hunting standpoint there are lots of geese around,” said Homyack. “That makes this a very goosey year for Delmarva.”

Several flocks of resident geese from surrounding northern states have also been swelling Delmarva’s winter population. Resident geese can become migrants during these weather conditions. They are thought to be a larger subspecies brought here by humans in the early to mid 1900s when using live decoys for hunting was still legal. DENNIS FORNEY PHOTOS

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Equal and opposite, summer-winter, and poor man’s fertilizer by Dennis Forney

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A thick blanket of snow across the Delmarva Peninsula may bring farmers a bit of welcome relief from the high cost of commercial fertilizer.

Here on Delmarva, the past summer was brutal: extremely hot and extremely dry.

Now the principle of equal and opposite settles in; every action producing an equal and opposite reaction.

This winter, starting 2025, is bringing extreme cold and lots of precipitation.

Shades of the winters of 1977 and 1978. Several days of single-digit temperatures in early January 1977 locked the peninsula’s waterways in thick ice, from the Atlantic to the Chesapeake. Too cold even to snow. Cars-driving-over-bays-and-rivers kind of ice. Watermen, desperate to tong a few bushels of oysters to make some money, had to break ice many days in a row to reach beds under open water.

Then followed 1978’s winter with epic blizzards bringing the peninsula’s activity to a standstill as surely as ice had done the year before.

Looking ahead: Maybe some January thaw this weekend with higher temperatures and rain, only to usher in our first string of single-digit temps next week. Prayer: Please rain, help wash away some of this snow-converted-to-ice leading to falls, and at least one death I’ve heard of along the coast.  A cracked head with no recovery.

Maybe rain will have more compassion than Mother Nature. Nature doesn’t care.

From bay to ocean, thick snow continues to blanket farm fields across Delaware and Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Poor man’s fertilizer it is often called, and not without merit.

Our atmosphere is made up of something like 70 percent nitrogen.  Scientists tell us that descending snowflakes attach to nitrates on their way down. They lay the green-giving nutrients across the soil in a beautifully uniform fashion, and release them slowly into the earth as the snow melts and seeps toward hungry roots.

Free fertilizer offers a welcome premonition of good crops when winter eventually gives way to spring and the next planting season.

Commercial nitrogen fertilizer is expensive. The poorman’s variety, like a rising tide lifting all boats equally, can ease some of the wallet pressure and with that a worthy smile.

Stay warm and spread a little love around.

 

In a marshy island of the Choptank River, just below the Dover Bridge crossing, what appears to be a colony of muskrat houses hold on to pieces of the persistent recent snowfall. DENNIS FORNEY PHOTOS.

Dennis Forney has been a publisher, journalist and columnist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972.  He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Bozman.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

This week proves PT’s admonition about watermen

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Keith Rupp, left, and Andy Hambleton with their Thursday catch of oysters aboard Andy’s boat Tammy. DENNIS FORNEY PHOTOS

Two or three years ago, PT Hambleton told me there’s only two things a waterman has to worry about: January and February. This week proves his point.

While California is fighting flames, the East Coast lies quietly beneath a blanket of snow now compacting into sheets of ice.

North and west winds combined with sub-freezing temperatures blow out the tides and leave thick scales of ice motionless on remaining mud flats.

At Hambleton’s crabbing and oystering operation at the head of Grace Creek, a couple of boats near shore with crabbing rigs still in place heel over on their deadrise bottoms.  When the winds ease and the tides return, they will right themselves.

Other workboats, rigged for oystering with dredges and tongs, sit in what water’s left, their owners awaiting more hospitable weather.

Strong west winds blow the tides out of Grace Creek.

“It’s brutal out there,” says Andy Hambleton. He’s at the stern helm of Tammy – named for his mom. Keith Rupp stands by the culling table alongside several bushels of oysters, just finishing tying up to the wharf to offload their morning’s catch and collect their pay. They were the only watermen who left the Grace Creek docks on Thursday.

“See all those anchors there on the stern?” says Andy.  “They were all overboard and I still couldn’t hold bottom against that wind. There’s oysters there but it was tough staying on them.”

He’s wearing an Elmer Fudd-style red and black-checkered hat with thick, fleece-lined flaps tied tightly around his ears.

“If I’d had my pick-up truck here on the back of the boat I’d of tied her off and thrown it overboard too. But that still probably wouldn’t have held.”

They worked fairly shoal water in the lee of Mulberry Point where Grace and Broad creeks join. “That didn’t help much so eventually we had to move back inside the creek,” said Andy.

Keith flashes a wide smile.  He’s happy to be back at the dock.  “See these new teeth? This is what pays for them. What makes us go.”

His two front teeth shine as white as the snow piled up on the gunnels of the workboats that never left the dock that day.

“These teeth and being broke ass,” he says.

“Broke ass is right.” Andy agrees.  “These oysters are going to pay the bank. You can’t let mother nature keep you in. There’s plenty of other stuff that will do that.”

Another waterman, Roger, finishes trading hunting and oystering stories with Phil and Shannon and Todd in the Hambleton office before heading out on the dock to check on his rig. He motored his rig down from Kent Narrows a couple weeks back to tong in Broad Creek.

“It’s been a decent oystering season so far. The price is up a little.  That helps.”

He looks at the deadrise tied up next to his. Sees water streaming, but not strongly, out of the bilge port just above the waterline.  “Better check on  that,” he says. “Hate to see that pump burn up cuz it’s froze open and doesn’t stop.  You have to keep an eye on your boats.  Especially in this weather.”

The freezing weather, with more to come, has brought a dramatic change.

In the two weeks before Christmas one waterman counted 53 boats tonging in the waters of Broad Creek reserved for that harvesting method. Far fewer boats are out now. Weeks like this, some days none.

Todd Hambleton offloads his brother’s catch of Broad Creek oysters.

The good news is the bushel price paid to the watermen is up a couple bucks over the $35 they’ve been getting since the start of the season in October. Unusual that the price will be up after the holidays.  The holidays are when demand is high, when the price holds. After Christmas and New Year’s demand usually drops along with the number of market days when buyers green light harvesting.

But with fewer boats harvesting, supply is shrinking. That sends the price higher. So there’s the good news for those who do go out, along with the fact that the quality of this year’s oysters is particularly strong: fat and with good color. Colder water makes for good oysters like that and they reportedly grow faster in these conditions.

The bad news? As PT says, just two things: January and February.

Dennis Forney has been a publisher, journalist and columnist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972.  He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Bozman.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

What does a waterman gift his father for Christmas?

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A waterman, not long off hand-tonging for oysters this frigid late morning, came through the front door of a vintage shop in St. Michaels. Antique house filled with antique items. Wood, metal, paint, paper, glass, clay.  No plastic.

He headed immediately up the wooden stairs to the second floor. Two days before Christmas. He knew what he was after.

Looking through eyes surrounded by skin weathered and cold-hardened from the morning’s work, he carefully examined the dozen or so workboat models lining the shelves. Bright sunshine streaming through the windows of the upstairs room spotlighted the details he patiently noted.

“Sir,” I said, pointing my words in his direction, 10 feet or so away in the next small room. “Do you do much fishing around here?”

I was holding a small case filled with a dozen shining and colorful spinner lures, thinking about a gift for my grandson.

He didn’t look up from the boat he was eyeing.  Didn’t answer me.

“Sir,” I said with more volume. Still nothing.

“Sir,” once more with even more lung.

Three’s a charm.

He finally looked up at me and I asked the fishing question again. By now I realized his hearing wasn’t so great.  I know the feeling, having to frequently ask people to speak up. Maybe his issue being a hitch developed over a few decades behind the loud exhaust of deck-mounted diesel engines in workboats.  Tractor hitch I think farmers call it.

Looking at the lures, he said he didn’t do that kind of fishing.  “I fish but it’s mainly with nets, commercial fishing.  Pound nets mostly.”

He looked back down at the model boat. “But I’m oysterin’ now. Hand tonging.  Not much fishing at the moment.

“I want to buy a model boat for my father for Christmas, but man, they’re high.”

Everything’s high these days, I thought. “Groceries are what got me elected,” said Donald Trump in a recent interview.  True words from my point of view. Lots of factors, but groceries were definitely one of the big ones. Inflation might be easing but prices are certainly not coming down in any hurry. Money’s tight.

The details he had been eyeing on the models included price tags.  I had looked at them too.  Several hundred dollars, each.

Lots of time and effort–meticulous work–go into model building.  The best ones–and these were all high quality–amount to scaled down but highly accurate versions of the real deal, with tiny braided-cotton lines, metal anchors, and other detailed rigging, whether tongs or dredges.

But lots of time and effort also went into that wad of cash the Tilghman Islander was fingering in his pocket as he considered the gift for his father, probably a waterman himself.

At $35 a bushel and a 12-bushel daily limit, the purchase would cost him at least one full day’s work, that day’s work probably, and the cash he was paid for that effort.

The waterman took his time with all the models displayed but kept coming back to a handsomely painted draketail with its slim stern and elegant hull curving gently upward toward a proud stem. Chesapeake watermen have a great appreciation for the graceful lines of their workboats and the tools of their trade.

“He decorates his house with these,” the waterman said as he handed over his cash to the lady at the front desk.

“He will really appreciate this,” she said.

A lot of love, respect, and admiration in that pure, way-of-life gift.

Christmas, I thought. Its sentiments run deep.

Photo by Dennis Forney

Dennis Forney has been a publisher, journalist and columnist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972.  He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Bozman.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Front Porch Orchestra’s bluegrass Nutcracker joyful and uplifting

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The Front Porch Orchestra, a talented group of Eastern Shore musicians and artists, performed their spirited bluegrass version of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker at Kent Island’s Cult Classic Brewery stage last Saturday afternoon and evening. Two performances, two full houses.

Another performance is scheduled for Chestertown’s Garfield Theater on Wednesday evening, Dec. 18.

Scored and arranged by one of the group’s musicians, the joyful music and kicky narration filled its audiences with the Christmas cheer the Russian composer no doubt intended.

Russia’s complex history and its current invader status added a layer of unspoken poignancy. Amidst Gypsy-inspired dances propelling the performers’ infectious swirl of music, thoughts of how Vladimir Putin and his war machine will be celebrating Christmas this year wormed their way into my consciousness as I listened. Ah, the many textures of human existence.

Nothing, however, could overshadow the immense sense of appreciation for the creativity, skill, and dedication of the performers, the arranger, and Pyotr Ilyich himself.

The Front Porch Orchestra added its own sugar plum to the conclusion of the performance with an uplifting version of Leonard Cohen’s Alleluia.

Such expressions of beauty and love continue to kindle hope for our trouble-filled world.[

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

High quality oysters, fickle market greeting new season

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The power dredging oyster fleet at P.T. Hambleton’s crabbing and oystering operation on Grace Creek in Bozman. DENNIS FORNEY PHOTO

Oyster harvesting in Maryland’s Chesapeake waters on public bottom opened for the 2024-2025 season on Oct. 1. Hand tongers got the first crack at this year’s crop of market-size oysters since the season for power dredging doesn’t open each year until Nov. 1. The open season continues until March 31, 2025.

There’s nervousness on the water because the new season opens against the backdrop of two wildly different past two seasons.

According to state statistics gathered from oyster buyers up and down the Bay, Maryland’s watermen harvested and sold 722,850 bushels of oysters during the 2022-2023 season with an estimated dockside value of $31,241,577. The following 2023-2024 season’s numbers showed a harvest of 437,536 bushels with a dockside value of $15,528,786, a dramatic decrease.

Curiously, despite a large increase in the number of individuals reporting catches in the 2023-2024 season compared to the season before – 649 vs. 415 – the results in bushels harvested and their dockside value were much lower. It turns out that the high harvest and sales in the 2022-2023 season, that drew so many more individuals into the harvesting the following year, was an outlier.

Relative to the recorded harvests over the past 25 years, the 2022-2023 harvest represented a huge spike. A radically fluctuating market appears to be the dominant factor.

The decline the following year didn’t occur because the volume of oysters in the Chesapeake went down. Strong spat sets over the past few years have resulted in expanding oyster populations. Rather, problems in Gulf of Mexico oyster populations that led to harvesting moratoriums led to greater demand for Chesapeake oysters in that strong 2022-2023 season.

With the Gulf oyster industry back online during the season just past, demand for Chesapeake oysters along the East Coast declined, especially after the typically strong holiday season. In January, February and March there were many weeks when buyers only had a market two or three days.  Instead of harvesting five days a week as permitted by law, watermen had to stay home when there weren’t market days.

Jeff Harrison, a waterman and president of the Talbot Waterman Association, said things weren’t so great for Maryland oystermen last year and he expects the same for this new season. “We’re getting $35 per bushel this year.  That’s the same as we got 25 years ago. It might go a little higher before Christmas but not much.  The biggest thing is the market. It’s not what it was and we’re not sure why.  There’s lots of oysters out there.  The spat set in Broad Creek is amazing again this year, possibly because of the sanctuaries where the state’s putting oysters and prohibiting harvesting. And it’s not the quality of the oysters. The quality is as good as I’ve ever seen. It’s a good time to be eating oysters. I think the shuckers are getting two to three pints of oysters more per bushel than they were last year, but we’re still only getting $35 per bushel.”

Harrison said this year’s crab market was also soft.  “Everything hit great around the Memorial Day holiday.  Best ever. We were getting $200 per bushel and there were plenty of crabs around. Making good money.”

But then, he said, the market softened through the summer.  “The crab volume went down when they spread out from the creeks. We weren’t catching as many and the price also started going down.  By the fall, when the crabs are the fattest and the best, the price at the dock for us had dropped to $70 per bushel for number ones.  It’s been a long time since we got that little. Better product and less dollars, for the oysters and the crabs. It doesn’t make any sense.

 “Apparently, the same thing’s going up and down the coast,” he said. “Lobstermen and shrimpers are saying they’re not getting any real money either.  And 85 percent of our seafood still comes from overseas. Why don’t people want to buy local seafood and pay for it?  Maybe it’s the economy. I don’t know. But something’s going on.”

Chris Judy, director of Maryland’s Shellfish Division, tried to inject a dose of reality into the situation with a touch of the positive. “From what we hear, this season’s catch is down, but note that even if it ends up at about 400,000 bushels (compared to the earlier 722K or 437K) this is still a strong harvest compared to the trend of the prior decades.”

Watermen harvest oysters by hand tonging, dredging under sail and power on skipjacks, diving and hand picking from the bottom, and using hydraulic-powered patent tongs for working deeper water bars. Dredging the bottom under power with typical workboats has become the most popular and efficient method.

Dennis Forney has been a publisher, journalist, and columnist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972. He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Bozman.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Grace Creek Almanac: Spanish Coast

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Here’s Becky on Camino Santiago’s coastal route. The path follows the rocky shores of the North Atlantic, just about due east of the Delmarva Peninsula by a few thousand miles.

SPANISH COAST – Our early September hiking along Camino Santiago’s coastal route carried us northward from A Guarda, near the border with Portugal. About 120 miles over seven days to Santiago de Compostela. Lots of rocky outcroppings and patches of beach, small vacation estates overlooking the Atlantic and nestled in tall dune grasses, clean and narrow stone-paved streets in small villages strung up against the sea.

Little churches and chapels of stone, houses and businesses of old stone construction–everything is built of stone and concrete including the landscape. It’s almost as if talented builders and the Tao Te Ching’s Master Carpenter planted magical stone seeds in the rocky underpinnings where they took root and grew and transformed in all kinds of minerally ways to become windows, walls, floors and roofs.

That’s right, they just grew up out of the ground that way.  (Strong coffee folks, that’s all I can tell you.) All stone except for the terracotta roof tiles.  I guess they burned up all the wood centuries ago for heat and cooking.

Entropy.  Taking the energy stored in wood and converting it for other uses. Entropy.  Releasing energy stored in walls protecting our egos so it can move to other parts of our brain for creative expression and understanding.

The Camino took us up and down coastal terrain through thick natural shrubbery and–closer to the paralleling coastal highway–across asphalt parking lots for touristy hotels, cafes and restaurants.

With August and vacation season behind us though, this was a quieter time. Also, at this distance from the final destination, not as many pilgrims greeted us with the ubiquitous Buen Camino! salutation.

Of course the closer we came to Santiago, the more populated the path became with the convergence of other Camino routes.

Halfway in the first day’s 18-mile hike, a red lighthouse perched high on a mountainous rocky outcropping in the distance north of us. While cautioning the maritime trade, the lighthouse for us also served notice that our way was about to turn eastward into Spain’s interior.

Clearly, ancient travelers afoot wanted to go eastward around that forbidding mountainous impediment as much as wary mariners wanted to stay westward of its dangers slinking down in hiding beneath the waves.

That interior section of the Camino over the much-less elevated pass imprinted the age of this journey deep and viscerally on my mind. Despite its rockiness, millions of travelers over thousands of years have helped level this often-steep section.

We picked our way over everything from gravel-sized stones to the rounded tops of vehicle-sized boulders. At one point I found myself staring at and mesmerized by wooden cart wheel-width ruts worn inches deep into solid granite. The agreeable scent of bordering tracts of cultivated eucalyptus forest further stayed my step as I considered the ruts.

If you’re thinking the same as I am, yup, you obviously know I was in a rut. But it was a pleasant rut I was in no hurry to shed.

Here was slightest but primary communication with ancients, like discovering an arrowhead in a freshly plowed field, holding it in your hand and thinking about the last hand that held it.  Communication was there in as common a thing as a rut. Ego melted in that consideration, melding my soul with countless others across the almost limitless scope of human experience.

Roman legions and their traveling communities eventually evolved into steadily northward flowing currents of pilgrims seeking a different form of treasure and higher authority.

John Denver sang about it with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band: “Mountains may disappear, rivers will dry up, and so it goes with everything but love.”

But what about the rain-punctured egos I promised in the previous post? They’re up next but I’ve asked enough of you today.  If you’ve stayed with me this far, thank you for reading.  And don’t forget to spread a little love around.  A little by lots of us goes a long way.

Buen Camino!

Please notice the wooden wagon wheel ruts worn into the granite through ages of travel over this pass along the Camino Santiago. 

 

DENNIS FORNEY PHOTOS

Dennis Forney has been a journalist, editor, publisher and photographer on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972. He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Maryland’s Talbot County.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

A Midsummer Trifle on Nettles, White Ibis and Hungry Rabbits

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A blazing red sun rose over the Miles River and lit up this trawler at the docks of Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Thursday morning in St. Michaels Photo by Dennis Forney.

GRACE CREEK ALMANAC – Oppressively hot summer days can make a man lazy. But jumping off the dock, despite the water nearing bathtub temperature, revives spirits and energy levels.

Instant air conditioning, even on 95-degree days, when I climb out of the water and feel even light breezes cooling my skin.

This droughty summer has allowed jumps into Grace Creek even as we move into August.  That didn’t happen last year or the year before when prohibitive numbers of stinging sea nettles hustled me out of the water starting in early June and kept me out until the cold of late fall did the same.

From what I read, hot and dry weather favor nettle production. I’m stumped, but not complaining.

I’m also happy about increased water clarity. Maybe not as happy as the Parisians now swimming in the Seine, but happy nonetheless.

The positive impact of a billion dollars worth of infrastructure improvements on the Seine’s water quality is impressive.

During a recent trip into Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, cleaner water was more noticeable there as well. Less trash too.  Dramatically less than in previous years. City officials, donning bathing suits, jumped into the harbor this summer and deemed that waterway also swimmable.

It shows what can be done when humans put determination and resources into a problem.

Unlike sea nettle numbers, deer and rabbits ravaging the leaves of our grape vines and sweet potato hills are plentiful this year.

Late one afternoon this week, I watched two sleek and healthy does, along with three spotted fawns, grazing contentedly in my yard just beyond the garden. One of the does and I engaged in a stare down.  She didn’t move other than to raise and lower one of her front legs and gently stamp a few times.

I returned the gesture but it didn’t seem to translate into anything meaningful. They all lifted their white tails and took off when I took a few steps their way.

Meanwhile a couple small rabbits – tons of rabbits this year! – watched me closely while they munched on the few remaining sweet potato leaves in the garden. My mistake was the marijuana plant thriving nearby.

The rabbits must have chewed some of those serrated leaves, ending up with a case of the munchies, and then finding sweet potato leaves particularly satisfying.

Reflecting in my mind on a flock of white ibis that came winging last week across Harris Creek–flight pattern and thin-curved bills unmistakable field marks–I found myself simultaneously hoping the stinky spray I bought at the hardware store to deter the deer and rabbits does its job.

Nature and all of its convivulations come at us from several directions. Somehow, though, it never disappoints. I’m thinking bluebirds of course and not hurricanes.

PS – Thanks for reading, and don’t look up convivulations.  I just made that one up.

Dennis Forney has been a publisher, journalist and columnist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972.  He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Bozman.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Wild-Caught Chesapeake Blue Catfish Phenomenon Booming: Thank Goodness

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Horacio Savala oversees the fileting and packaging operation for Tilghman Island Seafood’s blue catfish processing facility. Quality control is paramount with the fish on ice from the time they leave the water until placed on the fileting table.

Buena Vista Seafood in San Francisco deals in high-end seafood from all around the world. European blue lobsters, Kambatia Reef Fish from Kenya, California Purple Urchins, and Icelandic Arctic Cod, to name a few.

Now, the company has added wild-caught Chesapeake Blue Catfish to its list of offerings.

“Chesapeake blue catfish check all the boxes,” says Polly Legendre, who’s involved in sales and operations for Buena Vista.

 “They’re a great tasting fish, clean and neutral with a nice flake. They’re also an affordable dinner fish whether for white tablecloth restaurants or for the family table. That’s very important in the current state of the nation.”

Legendre said the blue cats check the sustainability box because they’re an invasive species, ”insanely prolific in terms of reproduction. Targeting them for harvest will help ease the toll they’re taking on the rockfish and blue crab populations, both iconic value species that have built the Chesapeake reputation. Tilghman Island Seafood’s processing capacity and dedication to quality control give their filets a long shelf life and are the reason we can get them from the East Coast to the West Coast in great condition. So they’re a sustainable and reliable fishery.

“Finally, and very important,” said Legendre, is the positive social impact for the Chesapeake’s fishing community. “While addressing a real environmental problem, the growing blue catfish industry is also benefiting ice providers, truck drivers, cutters and packagers in the processing facility, and providing a new opportunity for watermen feeling pressure from fewer crabs and rockfish.”

That’s particularly notable, she said, in an era when watermen, here and in other parts of the country, are suffering from more and more restrictions on their harvesting. “This blue cat fishery is adding quota and volume to fisheries, allowing fishermen to catch with abandon. That’s positive for the industry.”

Good diet = Good fish

Unlike other species of bottom-dwelling catfish, blue catfish feed throughout the water column. That diet of other fish, crabs, clams and even rockfish eggs foraged from grasses in spawning grounds, no doubt contributes to the attractive flavor profile that differentiates them from other catfish.

On Tuesday this week, Tilghman Island Seafood Company air-shipped 400 pounds of fresh blue catfish filets westward to Buena Vista, just the latest in many shipments. That’s only a sliver of the estimated 100,000 pounds of fish Tilghman Island is now processing each week for its retail, restaurant and institutional customers such as schools and food banks.

All of those thousands of pounds of fish have been on ice from the time they have been pulled from the Bay’s waters. Tilghman Island Seafood president and owner Nick Hargrove set that water-to-ice standard early on.

Tilghman Island Seafood Vice President Norm McCowan and Office Manager Becky Miller with some of the packaging used to ship orders from coast to coast. Dennis Forney Photos.

He provides insulated composite vats filled with ice for the fishermen and truckers who catch the fish and transport them to the Tilghman processing facility, beside the island’s drawbridge over Knapp’s Narrows. “Keeping the fish on ice throughout the process has become second nature to everyone.  Quality is critical to the marketing of them as Wild Caught Chesapeake Blue Catfish. They have to be marketed that way.”

In the past few weeks, Hargrove has flown twice to Boston for, first, a fisheries conference, and then last week to follow up on more potential new business.  “We have to have sales,” he said.  “I already had a military customer.  More may be on the way. You can’t produce 20,000 pounds a day if you have no customers.  All of it is wild caught and sustainable. Can’t emphasize how important that is.”

While Hargrove is off cultivating new customers, or out on local waters placing spat on shell for his oyster leasing operations, Vice President Norm McCowan manages Tilghman Island Seafood company. “Nick is a great spokesman with great  vision,” said McCowan, “and because he’s a waterman himself, he knows the other watermen and how important the seafood industry is to the region.”

McCowan said Hargrove gets calls almost every day from fishermen wanting  to sell blue cats, while he and office manager Becky Miller handle shipments, processing and packaging.  “We send out samples every day to restaurants and other seafood distributors like Buena Vista. We are meeting the demand for the market we’re creating but we know our potential market is much larger than just state and local.  Texas, for example, is the largest catfish-eating state so we know we need to penetrate the South with our product.”

Exponential growth

The Tilghman operation is a busy place, with trucks always coming and going–coming with iced fish and leaving with more vats filled with ice for the next catch.

“We’re growing exponentially,” said McCowan  “Eighty percent of our sales are frozen, with 20 percent going to the fresh market, locally and across Maryland and as far away is San Francisco. But the catfish problem in the Bay is huge.  Like Nick says, we have to eat our way out if it. We have to take out 15 million pounds of fish a year just to keep up with the current balance. We’ve processed a half million pounds of fish in the past two months–2.4 million pounds since we started a year and a half ago or so. A guy is coming in today with 2,400 pounds of fish.  At 60 to 70 cents a pound, that’s a nice check for him.”

At 30 percent yield, those 2,400 pounds of fish will produce about 800 pounds of filets.

The numbers keep coming.  Hargrove said it’s estimated that the total blue catfish biomass in the Chesapeake is about 150,000 tons, or 300 million pounds. In Virginia’s James River, where the blue catfish were first introduced as a recreational species in the 1970s, Hargrove said it’s estimated they now represent 80 to 90 percent of the river’s entire biomass. “I’ve seen as much as 200,000 pounds come out of the Potomac in one day,” said Hargrove.  “With each fish producing up to 20,000 offspring a year, they’re not going anywhere.  We’re never getting rid of them.”

According to a Department of Natural resources press release, Maryland’s watermen harvested 609,525 pounds of blue catfish in 2013. By 2023, that number had jumped to 4.2 million pounds and is still rising.

With the help of Maryland’s two US Senators, Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, and First District Congressman Andy Harris, more than $3 million in federal money has been allocated to stimulate blue catfish processing facilities like Tilghman Island Seafood which is currently Maryland’s only United States Department of Agriculture-certified processing facility.

Hargrove said he is interested in expanding to another facility in Talbot County, preferably on Tilghman Island. “This is where we want to be,” said Hargrove. He said he would also be interested in adding an automatic fileting machine to his operation if he would qualify for grant money to help with the million-dollar expenditure.  “It’s a lot of money but it would enable us to process four or five times as much fish as we do now.  I can’t wait for that though. We have to keep operating and expanding as we are now.”

He said if he were able to get an automatic machine, current cutters could be redeployed downstream in the operation for other aspects such as portioning, creating more of the popular blue catfish nuggets, packaging and shipping.

Harris said he is also working with at least two other parties on the Eastern Shore who are interested in becoming blue catfish processors.

Big buy from USDA?

Meanwhile, at the federal delegation’s urging, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service has recently advertised draft specifications allowing it to purchase wild-caught blue catfish filets for national-level institutions, including school systems, penitentiaries, and military installations.

The USDA requires a federal inspector to be onsite at facilities such as Tilghman Island Seafood whenever it is processing fish, to guarantee its safety and quality.  Catfish are the only category of fish for which the government’s most rigorous inspections are required.  Up until now, according to Harris, and due to lobbying pressure from southern, farm-raised catfish producers, the AMS could only buy farm-raised catfish.

The new draft specifications allowing the government purchase of wild-caught catfish are in a comment period before final distribution to potential bidders.

“The good news is they buy by the truckload,” said McCowan. “That’s about 38,000 pounds, which we can do.”

“This would be a big deal for the industry,” said Hargrove. “Eight months ago when the AMS announced plans to purchase farm-raised catfish for its programs, it was for 800,000 pounds of filets. This time around we’ll try to get into it.  We’ll bid.”

He said there’s another plus for wild caught blue catfish. According to a recent Virginia Tech study he said, the heart-healthy omega-3 oil levels–found in many fish–are several times higher in blue cats than in farm-raised catfish.

Hargrove noted that Tilghman Island Seafood has recently been certified for exporting overseas to Poland and Asia.

“There’s definitely room for growth in blue cats,” he said.

Buena Vista’s Legendre will be traveling this week from San Francisco to Tilghman Island for further reviewing, videoing, and discussions with Hargrove and his crew as she continues her plans for ramping up sales of blue catfish west of the Mississippi.

To say she’s excited about the prospects is an understatement.

“I want to sell in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle and San Diego.  The fish and its quality are important to the California chefs but they’re also concerned about the sustainability, the problems associated with invasive species, and helping the fishing communities. We need to let the nation and world know that in this case harvesting this resource is solving more problems than it is causing.  I want to get chefs on some of the cooking shows talking about the virtues of Wild Caught Chesapeake Blue Catfish.”

Upward trajectory comes to mind.

“It’s hold on to your hat with this one,” said Hargrove. “This is still just the beginning.”

Dennis Forney has been a publisher, journalist and columnist on the Delmarva Peninsula since 1972.  He writes from his home on Grace Creek in Bozman.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.