This spring the water clarity in the Middle Bay was the best I’ve ever seen this year, and at multiple times in multiple places (Eastern Bay, the CCNPP, and outside the Choptank) it was possible to see bottom in eight feet of water. And this season not only did I enjoy the best spring rockfish bite I’ve seen in five or six years, the also fish looked fatter and significantly healthier than usual.

striped bass in the water
The waters of the Chesapeake - and the rockfish swimming in them - were utterly awesome this spring.

Coincidence?

I’m not the only one to notice the greatly enhanced water clarity, and I’m sure many of you Bay anglers reading this right now are nodding your heads in agreement. In fact, it was a popular topic of conversation among many of us. And many people wondered: are we seeing a real improvement in water quality here?

I truly wish the answer was yes, but I’m pretty darn sure it’s not. I’m not a scientist and I don’t have the data to back it up, but there’s no doubt in my mind that for as long as I’ve been around when we’ve had times of very little rainfall the Bay water quality has improved. Unfortunately, just as soon as we have a big, hard rain, water quality goes right back down. All the nutrients, chemicals, and garbage we humans allowed to accumulate on dry land get flushed right into the Chesapeake. Not long after, those visibility- and oxygen-killing algae blooms follow. This year we had a relatively dry spring, and the rain that we did get was for the most part on the gentle side and spread out rather than in torrents. So, we were treated to a glimpse of what might be.

We can imagine what might be if the Bay’s water quality was always this good, and the visibility was always so magnificent. But we don’t have to imagine, because we have history:

  • “The abundance of oysters is incredible. There are whole banks of them so that the ships must avoid them. They surpass those in England by far in size, indeed, they are four times as large. I often cut them in two, before I could put them into my mouth.” – Francis Louis Michel, 1701
  • “The main river (James) abounds with sturgeon, very large and excellent good, having also at the mouth of every brook and in every creek both store and exceedingly good fish of diverse kinds. In the large sounds near the sea are multitudes of fish, banks of oysters, and many great crabs.” – Christopher Newport, 1607
  • “Sturgeon and shad are in such prodigious numbers that one day within the space of two miles only, some gentlemen in canoes caught above six hundred of the former with hooks… and of the latter above five thousand have been caught at one single haul of a seine.” – Andrew Burnaby, 1759
  • “Herring are not as large as the European ones, but better and more delicious… when they spawn, all streams and waters are completely filled with them, and one might believe, when he sees such terrible amounts of them, that there was as great a supply of herring as there is water. In a word, it is unbelievable, indeed, indescribable, as also incomprehensible, what quantity is found there.” – William Byrd II, 1700
  • “Heaven and Earth never agreed better to frame a place for means of habitation.” – Captain John Smith, 1608

We have a lot of work and a long road ahead of us before we’re likely to again enjoy visibility of eight feet in May and June, much less bring it back to its former glory. But at least that last quote is still true today.

chart of oyster harvest in chesapeake bay
Before that, we just don’t know. Graphic by U.S. Fisheries Statistics