{"id":42400,"date":"2024-09-06T08:31:17","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T12:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/?p=42400"},"modified":"2024-09-06T08:34:31","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T12:34:31","slug":"youth-angler-from-wicomico-county-becomes-13th-fishmaryland-master-angler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2024\/09\/06\/youth-angler-from-wicomico-county-becomes-13th-fishmaryland-master-angler\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth Angler from Wicomico County Becomes 13th FishMaryland Master Angler"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Landon Derbyshire is the second youth angler to earn the Master Angler Milestone award<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 374px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53956306743_e62e3535bd.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of young man on a boat holding a large fish\" width=\"364\" height=\"273\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Landon Derbyshire, 13th FishMaryland Master Angler, holds a red drum caught and released near Crisfield on Sep 2, 2023. Photo by Chris Derbyshire, used with permission by Maryland DNR.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Landon Derbyshire of Eden, Maryland, has earned a Master Angler Milestone Award under the Maryland Department of Natural Resources\u2019 FishMaryland program.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Derbyshire is the 13th Master Angler since the program began in 2019 and the second youth angler to win the award, having met his qualifications at age 15. The award recognizes recreational anglers who catch ten trophy-sized fish of different species in Maryland.<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Derbyshire targets a variety of saltwater and freshwater fish, including invasive species, along the lower Eastern Shore, Chesapeake Bay, and Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI got into fishing because my dad took me pond fishing when I was around five and I really enjoyed it,\u201d Derbyshire said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The FishMaryland program includes dozens of species from both salt and freshwater. Derbyshire submitted entries for all ten catches and received individual certificates for each catch. He caught and released his tenth FishMaryland eligible fish, a sand tiger shark, on a boat just beyond the breakers off of a Maryland ocean beach. His Master Angler certificate was awarded on August 27, 2024, about two weeks before his 16th birthday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Derbyshire\u2019s qualifying catches, in order, were:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Carp &#8211; 31.5 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sheepshead &#8211; 24.5 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Blue shark &#8211; 85 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Red drum &#8211; 51 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Striped bass- 45 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cobia &#8211; 53 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Blueline tilefish &#8211; 28 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Northern snakehead (Chesapeake Channa) &#8211; 31 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spotted seatrout &#8211; 24 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sand tiger shark &#8211; 73 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Derbyshire caught the qualifying fish in many different locations including hooking a Chesapeake Channa in the inland tidal waters of Allen Pond, a cobia in the lower Chesapeake Bay (the Middle Grounds), and a blue shark off the Ocean City shore at the &#8220;Hot Dog,\u201d a popular deep water fishing spot.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI would say my favorite fish to catch would be red drum,\u201d Derbyshire said. \u201c I like fishing for them because they put up a great fight and they are a really cool looking fish.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">He had set his sights on becoming the youngest Master Angler award winner. After 11-year-old angler <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2024\/05\/29\/tenth-fishmaryland-master-angler-is-first-youth-angler-to-achieve-milestone\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lucy Moore earned that title<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in May 2024, Derbyshire then determined he would work to achieve the award before his 16th birthday.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI showed people I could do it before I was old enough to get a fishing license,\u201d Derbyshire said. \u201cI had a lot of fun catching these fish and would not have caught them without help from the great folks at Sea Hawk Sport Center in Pocomoke City. My advice is to never give up, and keep fishing.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">FishMaryland is Maryland\u2019s recreational fishing award program and is a fun way to explore year-round recreational fishing and enjoy affordable, accessible, diverse, and high-quality fishing opportunities. More information on the Master Angler Milestone Award and the FishMaryland program is available <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/dnr.maryland.gov\/fisheries\/Pages\/FishMaryland\/index.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">on the program\u2019s website<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Landon Derbyshire is the second youth angler to earn the Master Angler Milestone award Landon Derbyshire of Eden, Maryland, has earned a Master Angler Milestone Award under the Maryland Department of Natural Resources\u2019 FishMaryland program.\u00a0 Derbyshire is the 13th Master Angler since the program began in 2019 and the second youth angler to win the<a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2024\/09\/06\/youth-angler-from-wicomico-county-becomes-13th-fishmaryland-master-angler\/\">&nbsp;&nbsp;Read the Rest&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[957,11],"tags":[5429,5430,4314,3276],"class_list":["post-42400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appnews","category-fisheries","tag-fishmaryland","tag-master-angler","tag-sportfishing","tag-wicomico-county"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42400"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42402,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42400\/revisions\/42402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}