If you want to get good at something, talk to the experts" -- Lefty Kreh

Thanks for visiting 52 Week Season!

52 Week Season is a project to explore a hunting or fishing opportunity each week of the year in the mid-Atlantic. When I started, my intention was to interview various hunting and fishing guides on their approaches throughout the seasons, but I increasingly became more interested in the seasonal patterns of the species themselves and the yearly rituals we build around them. 

Some of these traditions are based on seasonal cues such as migrations or reproduction, while others are purely institutionalized by the DNR. 

For example, we don’t know exactly when the conditions will be perfect for the green drake hatch, whitetail rut, or canvasback migrations, but we have a pretty good idea from years of trial and error and perhaps some data (Memorial Day, mid-November, and “Canuary,” respectively). We itch for a warming trend for yellow perch in the spring and a northwest cold front for Canada geese at the fall but are at the mercy of mother nature. 

Yet we do know that the best opportunity for dove is high noon on September 1, that White Marlin Open is the first full week of August, and that schools are closed the Monday after Thanksgiving for whitetail opener in Pennsylvania. 

Many of these yearly traditions revolve around food -- springtime means shad plankings and fall means oyster roasts -- while others are strictly for sport. Some rituals aren’t based on science or calendar at all but just feel right. Mid-summer is the not the best time for largemouth bass, but there’s something about throwing poppers on a glassy lake before a July thunderstorm.

 Could you possibly hit each of these experiences in 52 weeks? Of course not. It’s absurd to you think you would have the time, but it’s also crazy to assume that a shark fisherman cares to throw flies at brook trout or that a duck hunter has any interest in coyotes. Plus, a jack of all trades is usually a master of none. 

But if you’re lucky, you can start to make connections. A hunter of diving ducks will know to return to the “hard bottom” during rockfish season, and a pheasant hunter can always use those tail feathers for a steelhead fly. And what is more satisfying than a cast-and-blast day targeting speckled trout and blue-wing teal in a September marsh? 

Some of the critters on this list are native and some are non-native, and many times it’s not clear. Largemouth bass are a familiar non-native species while snakehead are a non-native monster in many people’s eyes. Brown trout are non-native but long-established; sika deer are imported but at the same time unique to Maryland; and elk are native but reestablished. Tarpon and coyotes seem way out of place but are adapting to changing environments. 

So what is the "Mid-Atlantic"?  

One of my favorite descriptions is the boundaries of the Chesapeake Bay watershed featured in William Warner's Beautiful Swimmers: 

"The Bay’s entire watershed extends north through Pennsylvania to the Finger Lakes and Mohawk Valley country of New York, by virtue of the Susquehanna, the mother river that created the Bay. To the west it traces far back into the furrowed heartland of Appalachia, but one mountain ridge short of the Ohio-Mississippi drainage, by agency of the Potomac. To the east the flatland rivers of the Eastern Shore rise from gum and oak thickets almost within hearing distance of the pounding surf of the Atlantic barrier islands. To the south, Bay waters seep through wooded swamps to the North Carolina sounds, where palmettos, alligators and great stands of bald cypress first appear." 

____

-- Patrick Ottenhoff, Washington, DC

 

Week 12. 38 North Oysters: Maryland's Sweet Spot

Week 12. 38 North Oysters: Maryland's Sweet Spot

Patrick Ottenhoff
Saltwater, Provisions

Oyster season is upon us in the Chesapeake!  Tonging and dredging are both in full swing throughout the Bay, and oyster festivals are being celebrated across the region from the from the 22nd annual Oyster Riot at Old Ebbitt Grill to the 51st annual National Oyster Festival in St. Mary's, to the 59th annual Urbanna Oyster Festival on the Northern Neck. 

““Oysters are pure and delicious, great for the economy, and one of the the only things that can help the Bay.””

The Bay once grew so many oysters that millions of bushels were exported across the continent.** At the peak of the oyster trade in the late 19th century, the U.S. Commerce Department reported “daily oyster trains of from thirty to forty cars from Baltimore to the West,” and “scarily a city or town [in America] which is not supplied with Maryland raw oysters.”

The demand for the delicious Maryland oyster is still high today, but unfortunately the population is a small fraction of what it used to be, which has repercussions through the food chain and also on the economy of many of the Bay’s waterman towns.

JD Blackwell of 38 North Oysters hopes to see that oyster population rebound. He sees oysters as one of nature’s perfect foods, a savory, clean, protein-packed food that cleans the waters of the Bay and funnels money back into local communities.  JD founded and runs 38 North Oysters in southern Maryland and also sits on half a dozen boards dedicated to strengthening the state’s aquaculture, where he has a front-row seat into the health the of oyster population and industry. 

As for the name, the 38th north parallel is the border between Maryland and Virginia, roughly around Crisfield, and also the nautical address of some of Maryland’s most prolific oysters waters. 

I caught up with JD on a late October afternoon.  Below are my questions in bold, followed by his answers. 

What’s the story behind 38 North Oysters?

I grew up in southern Maryland and started paying close attention to what Gov. O’Malley and President Obama were doing when the federal government said it would take control if the Bay didn’t develop a sustainable fishery and the governor starting promoting aquaculture, and in 2010 and 2011 I started to permit my own leases. 

I traveled all over the continent to oysters havens like Nova Scotia, Florida, California, and Washington state to study what they were doing, and gathered up their processes, and came back to Maryland to start permitting leases.  At that point — and still today — it was very difficult to permit leases, but it was so much fun to grow oysters and people get so happy when you give them oysters, that I couldn’t help by dive head first into growing oysters. 

Also, I don’t have to hang my head for any reasons. Oysters are great for the environment — they’re really the only solution for cleaning the Bay. Oysters are great for the consumer — they are healthy and nutritious. And oysters are great for the economy — it keeps people employed and brings in some revenue to the areas.  So they’re a great product, good for the environment, and good for the economy.  

How did you get the name, 38 North? 

Most oysters are named for the waters they’re grow in: Bluepoint is a spot on Long Island; Wellfleet is on Cape Cod; Malpeques is on Prince Edward Island. I was growing all over Maryland and kept writing the coordinates of 38 North in the leases - I must have written it a hundred times!  That’s when I realized that the best places to grow oysters in Maryland are between Crisfield and Annapolis, which is the 38th degree latitude. 

Between the 38th parellel

Between the 38th parellel

Where do you grow your oysters specifically?  What are you “home waters”? 

Mostly at the confluence of the Potomac and Chesapeake, right near Point Lookout.  We have some leases on the Potomac side and some on the Bay side. We chose to grow them as far away from people as possible and minimize the effect of population.  At Point Lookout, there is a tremendous flow and flush of the tides and currents, and not very many people.  If I grew in Annapolis, for example, it would be a very different taste, but we grow them in the most pristine environment that I can find in Maryland. 

How are the southern Maryland oysters different from elsewhere in mid-Atlantic and East Coast? 

All of the oysters on the East Coast are the same species, the Crassostrea virginica, but they’re going to absorb their local environment and taste different depending on where they grew. Our are unlike any others, and are more mild and sweeter. If it were a wine, it would be like a pinot noir. It has a soft flavor that has kind of a sweet, buttery, creamy finish.  

What are your various growing and harvesting season? 

We’ll plant a new spat in the spring around May 1 that make new baby oysters, that we’ll then put in the water in early July.  Those oysters will continue to grow through the summer and fall, and then around Christmas they’ll go to sleep until May and then wake up from their slumber and repeat the cycle.  

In terms of official seasons, tonging for wild oysters starts October 1, and dredging is November 1, but I don’t think that the Maryland oyster is really at its prime until January 1. 

Any favorite annual tradition?

One of the biggest celebrations of the year is the National Oyster Festival in St. Mary’s County, held the third week of every October.  

Also, we’re particularly proud this year of being selected for the Oyster Riot at Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington, which is held every November.  There are only 12 oysters on the menu from the whole country, and we’re the only Maryland oysters.  They’re very careful about the safety, taste, and consistency of the oysters, and we’re proud to be picked. 

How are oysters doing in the Bay?

Not very well. We used to have oysters in the trillions in the Chesapeake 100 years ago. They were like the chicken of today, meaning they would be moved all over the country by rail car as cheap food, especially when the country was growing in the 1910s, 20s, 30s. We literally ripped them off the sea floor and shipped them all over the country. 

There’s almost not any wild oysters left, and most that we have today were planted as mass aquaculture. Another potential issue is that the environment is changing and that ocean acidification may be having an effect that is making it harder for oysters to reproduce, as the shell is dissolving faster and there’s less shell for the spat to attach to. 

I sit on every major commission to address the health of the oyster population and the Bay, including the Tidal Fisheries Advisory Commission that reports to DNR and the Governor. My role on these boards gives me a front row seat to the population of oysters, and it ebbs and flows year-to-year, but I don’t get the sense that it’s on the rebound. 

Maryland started shifting gears six years ago to set up sanctuaries, but still hasn’t really figured out what to do. Some of the oysters set up in the sanctuaries are actually being stolen, but they’re also not producing very efficiently. Virginia is a more managed and controlled fishery, but it still has challenges, and I don’t see a good trend on either the Maryland or Virginia sides.  

What does that mean for the entire food chain? 

The food chain in general is in danger, from blue crabs, bluefish, rockfish, to cownose rays. The primary source for all life is the sun, which crashes into the planet earth and makes grass and vegetation. Oysters eat the algae, which begins the food chain. It is how the sun’s energy is turned into mass for things like crabs, or bluefish, or eels, or cownose rays. Without that convergence of energy, other animals are in trouble. 

On a happier note, what’s your favorite way to eat oysters?

I personally love oysters and Moscow mules.  I would eat the oyster pretty much naked which is why I would have cocktail with it. But you can serve an oyster BBQ’ed, an oyster fried, an oyster sushi — really any way is good!

What should more people know about oysters? 

Marylanders are allowed to get one bushel a day if they want to. It might be hard in Annapolis to do that, but down near us, it’s very possible. I think if people went out and caught a bushel once they would appreciate what we do and could make oysters more of like an everyday meal. It’s such as great food — nearly every other food has been monkied with from GMO’s, pesticides, herbicides, hormones, steroids.  An oysters has none of that! It’s pure and delicious and it’s the only thing that can help the Bay. 

**The landmark 1887 study The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States recorded these harvests in Maryland: 

"In addition to Baltimore, packing is carried on in Maryland at several other points. Mr. Edmonds reports these as follows for 1880:

  • Crisfield, 16 firms, 678 employes, packing 427,270 bushels, worth $165,800;
  • Cambridge, 8 firms, 385 employes, 205,410 bushels, worth $76,658;
  • Annapolis, 8 firms, 315 employe's, 156,703 bushels, worth $69,555;
  • Oxford, 7 firms, 156 employe's, 108,960 bushels, worth $39,986;
  • Saint Michaels, 4 firms, 91 employe's, 37,788 bushels, worth $14,053 ;
  • Somerset County, 10 firms, 387 employes, 224,817 bushels, worth $86,945;
  • Seaford, Del., also has a packing trade supplied by Maryland oysters." 
 
Week 13. Billy Rice: Representing the Maryland Waterman

Week 13. Billy Rice: Representing the Maryland Waterman
Week 11. Will Payne: Virginia Sportsmen's Foundation

Week 11. Will Payne: Virginia Sportsmen's Foundation