Rockfish kill under Annapolis bridge

[azmdted]

Anyone else see the dead rockfish float past the Annapolis bridge about 1130 today? Can't see far in a kayak but I had dead rockfish floating past me for about 20 minutes. I probably saw a hundred or more, all sizes. Very sad. I couldn't tell how long they had been in the water.

BTW, I spent 2 hours live lining around the rock pile and got my first skunk of the year. My fishfinder only spotted a few there, they were stacked in each other there 2 weeks ago.

[J. Rentch]

I was out Friday morning, did see a couple of floaters. Results of a Dead Zone?

[EMSer]

Chum fleet......

[Mark]

When air temperatures exceed 95 degrees, catch and release stripers are particularly at risk in our area of the Bay with its lower salinity.

One 1999 MD DNR report I read even suggested the following:

"When environmental conditions are likely to be stressful for released fish (high temperature, both air and water, and low salinity) anglers should minimize the practice of catch -and-release fishing."

Well, that's not going to happen.

So the DNR suggests keeping stripers in the water if possible when releasing them during periods of increased temperatures.

That's also difficult for those of us who like to record our catches on pixels but it is something I can abide by. I measured and photographed a 21 incher last week and I noticed it was very slow to swim away when I released it. I hope it survived. I plan to leave my Hawg Trough home until temperatures moderate.

[Slobber Bob]

That many fish sounds more like a dissolved oxygen problem to me.

[azmdted]

Definitely too many for individual throwback deaths. There was a lot of brown algae, or something brown, floating in the same general area as them so maybe an algae bloom somewhere up bay killed a tributary full of fish.

[manlystanley]

Wow! This is very, very sad..........

Best Regards,
Stan