From Fletcher's to Fishing, It's All Right

From Fletcher's to Fishing, It's All Right

From Fletcher's to Fishing, It's All Right
By Angus PhillipsSunday, May 15, 2005; Page E02
It's time to give credit where credit is due. I never thought I'd be writing this, but GSI, the big government concessionaire that took over operations at Fletcher's Boathouse this spring, is doing a terrific job. My favorite outdoors place in the District -- maybe in the whole world -- is as inviting as ever. In some ways it's better than ever.
A new fleet of spiffy, lightweight mountain bikes is ready to rent on the C&O Canal towpath. The canal itself is full of water, rental canoes are available, and the famous Fletcher's red rowboats are freshly painted and waiting on the river. Thanks to good weather, fishing in the Potomac has been excellent, particularly for migrating shad and striped bass. One thing that hasn't changed is Fletcher's coffee, still as acrid as train smoke. It'll strip the chrome off your car bumper.

Anglers ply Fletcher's Cove on the Potomac River, where one regular said fishing for white shad "hasn't been this good in 30 years." (By Angus Phillips For The Washington Post)
"Everything has changed but everything's the same," said angler Mike Bailey when we met last week at the crack of dawn to chase swarms of spawning American and hickory shad on the river.
We weren't the first ones out. Joe Fletcher was already on the river catching herring. The patriarch of the family that ran the boathouse for over a century retired in January, along with brother Ray, but both stayed on part time at GSI's insistence. Not many bureaucracies have the sense to hang on to creaky traditions. GSI dragged the Fletchers in against their will, to everyone's benefit.
GSI also is accommodating longtime customers who know that fish -- and fishermen -- arise early. Opening hours at the boathouse are unpredictable, but if the weather is nice and the fishing is as good as it was last week, you're likely to find someone there at sunup.
As Bailey and I readied a boat by dawn's dim light, we were a step behind 90-year-old George Frenett of Kensington, retired guidance director of Arlington County schools, who was heading out to troll alone for rockfish. He caught 10, kept two keeepers 18 and 19 inches long, and was back home to tend to his ailing wife by 10 a.m.
(Asked the secret to longevity, Frenett said fishing pays. "Time spent here doesn't count," said the white-bearded angler, who has been coming to Fletcher's since the 1940s when he fished with Joe and Ray's late dad, Julius. "A day spent fishing doesn't detract from your longevity. It's free.") About half the anglers last week were chasing stripers (rockfish), which have been abundant in the river since striper season opened in the District on May 1. Wallace Lew, recently retired as a judge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, brought his son Jonathan; they caught a half-dozen rock on cut herring and kept four, the biggest a 26-incher.
The Lews also were done by 10 a.m., when Jonathan raced home to study for finals at the University of Maryland, where he'll graduate this month if he doesn't spend too much time fishing.
Bailey and I were there for shad, in particular American shad, which are enjoying a remarkable rebirth on the river as the result of a 10-year restocking program by the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin (ICPRB).
American shad, also called white shad, once were thick every spring in the Potomac and other tidal rivers in the Chesapeake region. They come back from the sea to spawn in April and May. But shad and their roe are prime table fare and overfishing, combined with declining water quality and construction of dams that blocked spawning runs up many rivers, sent the population plummeting.
Today, shad are protected by law. You can't keep any. Meantime, ICPRB biologist Jim Cummins oversees a program that has hatched and transplanted millions of American shad fry in the Potomac since 1995. His effort, combined with construction of a fish ladder at Brookmont Dam to open waters upstream to spawning, produced an explosion in white shad numbers on the Potomac.
Fishing for whites this year is "not the best it's ever been," said former Interior Department biologist Gordon Leisch, a regular shad angler at Fletcher's for many years, "but it's close. It hasn't been this good in 30 years."
White shad are bigger than their next-of-kin, hickory shad, which are bigger in turn than their little brothers the herring. All three of the silvery species are abundant on the river this year, but it was whites that Bailey and I were after.
We didn't wait long to catch one. The rising sun was still tucked behind the trees on the Maryland shore when we put our lines over. Within minutes I felt a tug as a three-pound white smacked the little, quarter-ounce shad dart I was twitching slowly across the current. Bailey expertly landed it, held it up long enough for a photo, then sent it back unharmed to do its reproductive duty.
In three hours, we caught and released a dozen and a half white shad and an equal number of hickories, plus a few herring and white perch on shad darts.
The experts reckon shad will remain abundant in the river for a week or two more, while smaller rockfish should stick around all summer. As the spring fishing bonanza eases, interest at Fletcher's will shift as it does every summer to canoeing and bicycling. GSI hopes to introduce rental sea kayaks this year, another good idea.
Three months ago, I and a lot of other fans of Fletcher's braced for the worst as monolithic GSI took over a fragile little institution that has brought joy to Washingtonians since the 1800s. Credit is due where credit is earned, and GSI, led by district manager Kirk Huserik, proved us wrong. Huserik even managed to get the old phone number (202-244-0461) reinstated, so we can find out ahead of time how the river's running.
Nothing is the same and everything is the same. We tip our hats to GSI.