That was evident today as fishermen cast their lines from the pier onto the reef. The Bill Burton reef will be one of the most accessible oyster and fish reefs on the Eastern Shore. You don’t need a boat to fish it,” said Clint Waters, President of the Maryland Saltwater Sportsfishing Association, Dorchester Chapter. “This should help the fishing community experience good fishing, particularly with oyster spat. The three-dimensional artificial reef also serves a habitat for fish like striped bass, sea bass and croaker and for crustaceans like blue crabs, mud crabs and grass shrimp. Oyster shells are the normal substrate to which these species attach, but shells are in short supply. The reef balls act as an artificial structure upon which oysters, mussels, barnacles and other benthic organisms can attach. Following the reef ball placement, the crew of Patricia Campbelloverplanted them with one million “spat-on-shell” oysters produced at ORC. Patricia Campbell, CBF’s specially designed oyster restoration boat, deployed the reef balls throughout the summer, and placed the remaining 60 in the river Saturday as the public looked on from the pier. All 300 were “set” with baby oysters (“spat”) by submerging them in large tanks of Bay water at ORC and adding millions of oyster larvae spawned at the University of Maryland hatchery at the Horn Point Laboratory near Cambridge. The two foot-tall igloo-like reef balls were built by volunteers at CBF’s Oyster Restoration Center in Shady Side, Maryland (ORC) or by volunteers from the Maryland Saltwater Sportfishing Association (WSSA). The reef was created by placing a total of 300 concrete “reef balls” on the bottom of the Choptank, immediately alongside the fishing pier. This reef will help clean the water of the Choptank, and also boost fishing for the local community,” said Alan Girard, director of the CBF Eastern Shore Office. “This reef is an example of what it will take to restore the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. The completion of the reef in the Choptank River was celebrated on the pier by a crowd of fishermen, families, and state, city and other officials. Most of those tiny little spots are baby oysters ready to take off and grow.īut when I think of spat, I think of the past tense of spit, or maybe of a fuss between cats.īrent James, LRNow Oyster Restoration Coordinator, says the name dates as far back as the 14th century, but he does not know its origin.CAMBRIDGE– The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), the Maryland Artificial Reef Initiative (MARI) and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) finished constructionSaturday of an artificial oyster reef alongside the Bill Burton Fishing Pier adjacent to the Fredrick C. The photo above is of an oyster shell from the Lynnhaven with spat all over it. Spat is not a very endearing term for something so little that will grow up to be so delicious. Something in the water often attracts them to oyster beds and the little ones drop down and attach themselves to the older oysters or discarded shell.

Soon, many eggs are fertilized and turn into little larvae-baby oyster orphans looking for a home in which to settle down and grow up. Soon there is a “chain reaction of spawning, which sweeps across the oyster beds, turning the water milky white with millions of eggs and with clouds of sperm,” said Alice Jane Lippson and Robert Lippson in “Life in the Chesapeake Bay.”Īll the while, you are sipping a beer and eating a picnic lunch above! Oyster moms and dads on reefs everywhere spawn in early summer and warming water temperatures stimulate males and females to release their sperm and eggs into the water. If you are out on a boat this weekend, picture this scene in the life and times of oysters taking place in the water below you. While we are sitting here enjoying a July 4th holiday weekend, oysters are hard at work in the Lynnhaven River and beyond, making baby oysters to keep the waterways clean.

Oyster spat set sunny or shady