Google Earth

[ronaultmtd]

Many of us open this app to view the topography of our selected launch and fishing locations and see the edges of channels, flats and weed beds, etc.

Be aware that many of these satellite photos are pretty dated and nowhere near "realtime." I was bored to tears this cold, rainy weekend sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and opened Google Earth to look at a few of the locations...one was obviously more than a year old as the county had done major parking lot and ramp changes that were not shown on the satellite photos...

[Mark]

That's true. Some of the shots are very dated. Take a Google Earth look at your house. Mine has landscaping that has long since changed.

But it's still an excellent tool to get the general lay of the land and water to see how projected winds will impact your trip. You can even assess depth by looking at the changes in colors in the water. Then you can match up Google Earth images with Navionics charts to get more insight into depth changes. Of course, nothing in nature is static, especially tidal water bottom contours and depths. But close enough is good enough for much of our fishing.

I use Google Earth photos when fishing Eastern Shore ponds in winter. I want to see where the lily pads and spatterdock were growing in summer. Those places continue to hold fish even when the top water growth has died back for the winter.

Years ago we had a Chesapeake charter captain speak to the FSFFers. He either hired or had a friend with a plane, I cannot remember which. In winter when the water was clear he would fly over waters he fished looking for ballast piles. In colonial times, when tobacco ships came to Maryland they would be filled with ballast -- rocks, lots of them. Prior to loading MD tobacco onboard, they would dump their ballast. Those piles remain and provide excellent structure for fish.

He took aerial reconnaissance to a very detailed level.

[YakMonkey]

Google Earth

Try Google Earth ‘Pro’. You can go back to different months and years. It’s free but only available as the desktop version. It comes real handy when you look for the structures.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[J.A. Veil]

Most of the time when looking for aerial/satellite views, I use Google Maps. This loads quickly as a webpage, but offers just a single view. As Ron notes, the images are often rather old. Google Earth Pro is a separate program (free) that loads onto your computer. It takes a while to boot up each time, but it offers more features than Google Maps. One feature that may be helpful is the ability to look at different images of the same view taken in different months and years. Here is an example that I included in my January presentation to the Free State Fly Fishers group. I looked at Concord Pond in Delaware at two different times (different seasons and different decades). The dates can be seen on the slider bar in the upper left corner. That slider bar is activated by clicking on the clock face icon on the top row.


google earth 1.jpg google earth 21.jpg

The first view was taken in March 2007, and the second in June 2018. The March view shows less vegetation than the June view. Jumping ahead 11 years shows how that pond has changed during that time.

While this tool does not necessarily bring you up to the current time, it does allow you to make some judgements about whether a particular spot is changing over several years (e.g., more/less grass beds; the impacts or erosion or sedimentation).

[HJS]

In colonial times, when tobacco ships came to Maryland they would be filled with ballast -- rocks, lots of them. Prior to loading MD tobacco onboard, they would dump their ballast. Those piles remain and provide excellent structure for fish.

Sorry about sidelining this thread. But Mark’s comment struck a nerve with me… a good nerve I mean.

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Hey Mark – As I list in my profile, one of my hobbies besides fishing is Flintknapping. This hobby involves making arrowheads, spear points, and stone knives and other tools from rocks, just like the Native Americans did. This art of making stone tools goes way back 10s of thousands of years. The preferred material for making these tools is high quality Flint. British flint is the best there is. Geologically speaking, the mid-Atlantic region of the USA has a severe scarcity of good knappable material like flint. All the local Indians had available to them was rhyolite, milky quarts cobbles, and a few other nasty materials. These were all crap for making arrowheads. But they made do with this nasty materials because there was nothing else available.

As you say, these ballast heaps were dumped by old sailing ships coming in to Baltimore Harbor. Some of that ballast contained tons of prime British flint nodules. The bigger pieces were picked out by the sailors and sold to colonists for making flints for flintlock riffles as well as other flint needs of the colonists. The rest is dumped.

I found one of these dumps in the tidal Middle Branch Patapsco River. Most of the good stuff had been picked out by the colonist. But they did leave some knappable stuff that I now use 100s of years later after it was dumped. This heap becomes exposed during very low tides. But unfortunately, this dump site is soon to be bulldozers during the development of the Port Covington project on the middle branch. Such is the circle of life.

Pictues of my handy work:
A variety of what I have made from various knapping materials.
points with labels.JPG

Third from the left is made from British flint collected from a dump heap. The two whites are made from white opaque glass, also collected near Harbor Hospital. The black spear point is made from snow-flack obsidian.
4 points.JPG

[Mark]

Howard,

That's fascinating.

I love history and I enjoyed reading your addition to this thread. I did not know that about flint. You have a very interesting hobby.

[Big Mike]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing a Howard.