Historical newspaper articles on Severn pickerel fishing

[J.A. Veil]

Many MKF members enjoy fishing for pickerel in the Severn River. I have posted previously about the boom and bust cycles of pickerel populations in our local waters. The populations can be abundant for a few years, then drop precipitously by the following year. Since I started fishing for pickerel in the winter of 2006, I have observed this trend myself.

Last week DNR fisheries biologist Marty Gary shared with me 12 old newspaper clippings of outdoor columns dating back to 1939 that talked about pickerel fishing in the Severn, South, and Magothy rivers. It is enlightening and entertaining to hear about catching pickerel many decades earlier using simple rigs with live minnows or old lures that we now consider to be antiques. I did not know that there were rowboat rental facilities in both the Severn and South rivers in the old days. Some of you know CBF's chief naturalist, John Page Williams -- he is featured in some of the columns -- just one more example of his long-term familiarity with the Severn River ecosystem.

I was able to package all 12 articles into a single .pdf file of about 3.3 Mb. If any of you would like to see the articles, send an email to me at john@veilenvironmental.com and request the articles. I will email them back to you.

[DOGFISH]

I hate to date myself, but I remember the rowboat rentals on the Severn. Are there any boat builders that still build wooden row boats? I remember the Egbert Brothers on the Eastern Shore. However, they seem to have been the last of the production builders of row boats.