{"id":44240,"date":"2025-03-26T12:13:17","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T16:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/?p=44240"},"modified":"2025-03-27T18:29:48","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T22:29:48","slug":"harford-county-fisherman-named-18th-fishmaryland-master-angler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2025\/03\/26\/harford-county-fisherman-named-18th-fishmaryland-master-angler\/","title":{"rendered":"Harford County Fisherman Named 18th FishMaryland Master Angler"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">State record holder for rock bass, Thomas Over Jr., reaches new milestone<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 390px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54408644447_cc4a4aa208.jpg\" alt=\"Man in a boat holding a large fish\" width=\"380\" height=\"347\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Master Angler Thomas Over Jr. holds a trophy-sized striped bass that was caught and released in January. Photo courtesy of Thomas Over Jr., used with permission by Maryland DNR.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thomas Over Jr., of Darlington, 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\">Over, 30, is the 18th Master Angler since the program began in 2019. The award recognizes recreational anglers who catch ten trophy-sized fish of different species in Maryland.\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over is a lifelong resident of Harford County, growing up in Jarrettsville and moving to Darlington seven years ago.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cFishing has always been a passion since I was a kid, thanks to my father,\u201d Over said. \u201cGrowing up, I did more saltwater fishing than freshwater due to his obsession with offshore fishing. After moving closer to one of the greatest fisheries in the area, the upper Chesapeake Bay and Susquehanna River, I&#8217;ve spent countless hours on the water in search of every species that swims.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over\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; 30.1 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Blue catfish &#8211; 41.25 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\">Yellow perch &#8211; 14.25 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Smallmouth bass &#8211; 20.75 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Muskellunge &#8211; 40.75 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Striped bass &#8211; 44.25 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Blue marlin &#8211; 78 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">White marlin- 60 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Crappie &#8211; 15.5 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over is also a state record holder for rock bass in the Chesapeake division with a 1.0-pound fish caught in the Susquehanna River that <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2024\/01\/16\/harford-county-angler-catches-maryland-state-record-rock-bass\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">tied a record from 1997<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cLuck definitely had some play in this Master Angler award with the state record rock bass catch while targeting yellow perch, and the musky catch while dragging a jig through lay downs on the Conowingo Reservoir while bass fishing,\u201d said Over. \u201cThanks to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources for running this program and sparking interest in the sport, especially for younger anglers!&#8221;<\/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. Information on the Master Angler Milestone Award, and the FishMaryland program, including the more than 60 award-eligible species, 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<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fishing licenses can be purchased online or in person at license agent locations. License, fishing tackle, ammunition, boats, and marine fuel purchases fund DNR\u2019s fish and wildlife conservation work.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>State record holder for rock bass, Thomas Over Jr., reaches new milestone Thomas Over Jr., of Darlington, has earned a Master Angler Milestone Award under the Maryland Department of Natural Resources\u2019 FishMaryland program.\u00a0 Over, 30, is the 18th Master Angler since the program began in 2019. The award recognizes recreational anglers who catch ten trophy-sized<a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2025\/03\/26\/harford-county-fisherman-named-18th-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":[5429,2935,5430,4314],"class_list":["post-44240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appnews","category-fisheries","tag-fishmaryland","tag-harford-county","tag-master-angler","tag-sportfishing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44240","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=44240"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44262,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44240\/revisions\/44262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}