The crew from the boat Last Cast arrived first. Its best contender, a fat rockfish caught off Tilghman Island, was laid out on the measuring table just so -- its lower lip aligned with one end of a measuring stick, its sleek tail flared into a great, dark fan.
"Thirty-seven and seven-eights," pronounced Dick Franyo, eying the measuring stick. A respectable fish. A fish that, by dint only of the Last Cast's early arrival, would briefly give the man who caught it, Anthony Avery, a coveted top-ranked spot.
Tournament organizer Dick Franyo, left, inspects some of the day's entries. Rob Folstein, right, won with a rockfish 413/8 inches long.
(Susan Biddle -- The Washington Post)
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"The good news is, you'll be on the leader board -- at least for now," said Franyo, the host of the fourth annual Boatyard Bar & Grill Opening Day Rockfish Fishing Tournament.
Most calendars would tell you that winter left us last month. But in Annapolis yesterday, under a brilliant blue sky, at least 700 anglers participated in a tournament held on what many consider the Chesapeake Bay's true rite of spring: opening day of trophy season for rockfish.
The charity tournament, which has nearly doubled in size each year, raised $25,000 to be divided among the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Coastal Conservation Association of Maryland and a fishing camp for young people that is run by the Annapolis Police Department.
Out on the water, anglers said, it was a tough day: drenched in sun but windy in the morning, choppy. Of particular concern was a plume of sediment that reached down from the Susquehanna River and hugged the western shore.
None of which stopped anglers from pursuing their quarry -- rockfish, as striped bass in the bay are known, headed into freshwater tributaries to spawn.
Trophy season for rockfish begins a month before the regular season. Each angler is allowed to keep one rockfish a day, and that fish must be at least 28 inches.
"People love rockfish," said John Page Williams, senior naturalist with the bay foundation, citing their fine flavor and, for fish, good looks. "They're a real icon."
A little more than 30 minutes after the crew of Last Cast arrived, Annapolis resident Rob Folstein and the other guys from the boat Bohica delivered a beauty that Folstein had hooked south of Calvert Cliffs.
On the measuring table, the fish was adjusted, straightened. The crowd outside the Boatyard hushed as Franyo declared the fish to be 41 3/8 inches long -- a length that was not topped for the rest of the afternoon.
For Avery, 24, as fortune and the fish would have it, his encounter with local fame was short-lived.
Not 10 minutes after his name was scribbled on the leader board, Lonnie Schreffler brought in a 38-incher he landed off Bloody Point.
Avery, looking on as Schreffler slipped past him, said to his pals from the Last Cast, "Our 15 minutes are gone."
