{"id":43489,"date":"2024-11-19T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2024-11-19T14:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/?p=43489"},"modified":"2024-11-18T14:53:23","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T19:53:23","slug":"cecil-county-angler-named-15th-fishmaryland-master-angler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2024\/11\/19\/cecil-county-angler-named-15th-fishmaryland-master-angler\/","title":{"rendered":"Cecil County Angler Named 15th FishMaryland Master Angler"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nick Perez joins his 12-year-old daughter Lucy on the list of Master Anglers<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 374px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54134421347_b6d7ddc36a.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of man and girl holding a fish\" width=\"364\" height=\"485\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nick Perez holds a carp he caught in 2020 while fishing with his daughter, Lucy. Photo courtesy of Nick Perez.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nick Perez of Perryville 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\">Perez is the 15th Master Angler since the program began in 2019. The award recognizes recreational anglers who catch ten trophy-sized fish of different species in Maryland. Perez\u2019s daughter, <\/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<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, was the 10th Master Angler and was both the first youth and first female award recipient.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perez started fishing Maryland waters at age two and has \u201cfished nearly every fishery in the state for almost every species we have.\u201d Perez became well acquainted with the FishMaryland program after his daughter started submitting fish for her Master Angler Award. \u201cAfter watching her become the state&#8217;s youngest angler to receive the award, I figured it was time for dad to join her in the record books,\u201d said Perez.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perez\u2019s qualifying catches, in order, were:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chesapeake Channa (northern snakehead) &#8211; 34 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Redbreast sunfish &#8211; 8.5 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">White perch &#8211; 13.5 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Largemouth bass &#8211; 21 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bluegill &#8211; 12 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chain pickerel &#8211; 24 inches\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Redear sunfish &#8211; 11 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rock bass &#8211; 10.5 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Crappie &#8211; 16.5 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yellow perch &#8211; 14 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perez\u2019s final qualifying fish was an impressive 14-inch yellow perch. Chesapeake Channa, also known as northern snakehead, has become his favorite species to target and a 34-incher was the largest of his ten qualifying catches. The most challenging catch he reeled in while pursuing the award was the redear sunfish.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI had to drive an hour and a half to Frederick and fish Cunningham Falls because I knew that was my best shot at a big one,\u201d Perez said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d(FishMaryland) is a great way to challenge yourself to become a better angler, and it might force you to get out of your comfort zone and target species you&#8217;ve never tried to catch before,\u201d Perez said. \u201cI think my long-term goal is to have every single citation for every freshwater fish in the state.\u201d<\/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>Nick Perez joins his 12-year-old daughter Lucy on the list of Master Anglers Nick Perez of Perryville has earned a Master Angler Milestone Award under the Maryland Department of Natural Resources\u2019 FishMaryland program.\u00a0 Perez is the 15th Master Angler since the program began in 2019. The award recognizes recreational anglers who catch ten trophy-sized fish<a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2024\/11\/19\/cecil-county-angler-named-15th-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":[2934,5429,5430],"class_list":["post-43489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appnews","category-fisheries","tag-cecil-county","tag-fishmaryland","tag-master-angler"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43489","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=43489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43490,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43489\/revisions\/43490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}