Rich Dennison is a busy man. Not only is he store manager at Tochterman’s Fishing Tackle in Baltimore, Maryland, he also teaches a class at Tochterman’s on striper trolling in the winter and early spring, and serves as CCA Maryland’s Baltimore Chapter president in his spare time.
CBIBS data helps Rich make the most of his time on the water. “The data provided by CBIBS is a very useful tool for anglers fishing the Chesapeake Bay. I use both the website and mobile app to show customers (on a daily basis) the current conditions on the bay and how the data pertains to fishing. I also teach a striper trolling class and I have made CBIBS data a part of the curriculum,” he said.
Rich uses the CBIBS mobile app and sometimes the website to access data, primarily from the Patapsco and Annapolis CBIBS buoys, as “most of our customers fish in these areas. I also like looking at the Gooses Reef buoy for the bottom data. For anglers, water temperature is important and having a buoy that tells us the water temperature below the surface is very useful.”
The Gooses Reef buoy features a “bottom lander” that tracks water temperature and a handful of water-quality data—including dissolved oxygen and salinity—on the Bay’s bottom, roughly 40 feet below the buoy itself.
To plan his day on the water—with an eye to both safety and good fishing—Rich monitors wave height, turbidity, water temperature, bottom water temperature, wind direction, wind speed and gust, salinity, sea nettle probability, and barometric pressure.
“First and foremost, safety is important. Knowing wind and wave information is vital for any boater. As for fishing, having information such as turbidity, water temperature and salinity available to the public will help an angler have a successful day on the water. This will lead to people wanting to spend more time on the water,” Rich emphasized.
Rich uses data from the CBIBS buoys all the time, for fishing mostly but also for general boating, as it is “information that we can use for guidance and increased safety.”
We’ll see you on the water, Rich!