{"id":48088,"date":"2026-08-04T11:31:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T15:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/?p=48088"},"modified":"2026-08-06T07:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T11:33:11","slug":"eleven-year-old-from-baltimore-county-named-34th-fishmaryland-master-angler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2026\/08\/04\/eleven-year-old-from-baltimore-county-named-34th-fishmaryland-master-angler\/","title":{"rendered":"Eleven-year-old from Baltimore County Named 34th FishMaryland Master Angler"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 406px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55235447507_e29acdeef1.jpg\" alt=\"Man and boy holding a fish next to a river\" width=\"396\" height=\"429\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Angler Talan Scott Vrablic (right), along with his father Raymond Vrablic, caught and released an 18.75-inch hickory shad on the way to Talan&#8217;s FishMaryland Master Angler award. Photo by Raymond Vrablic.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Talan Scott Vrabic of Rosedale has earned a Master Angler Milestone Award under the Maryland Department of Natural Resources\u2019 FishMaryland program. The award recognizes recreational anglers who catch ten trophy-sized fish of different species in Maryland.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vrabic is the fifth youth angler (under age 16) and one of two eleven-year-olds to secure the award. Vrabic and his father, Raymond Vrablic, are an inseparable fishing team, and Vrabic has been accompanying his dad on fishing trips since he was 5 months old. Today, they fish together throughout Maryland.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">His father has physical disabilities and is not able to walk, which can make fishing trips challenging for the pair. Vrabic said that surmounting those difficulties made fishing together even more special.\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vrabic\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 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yellow perch &#8211; 14 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chain pickerel &#8211; 26.5 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\">Crappie &#8211; 15 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Blue catfish &#8211; 40 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Striped bass &#8211; 46.5 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hickory shad &#8211; 18.75 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bullhead catfish &#8211; 15.5 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sand tiger shark &#8211; 116.4 inches<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vrabic likes to fish for blue catfish and Chesapeake Channa (northern snakehead), but his favorite fish to catch is hickory shad. He says it was a challenge for him and his dad to be in the right place at the right time to enjoy this catch-and-release fishery. They have traveled to the lower Susquehanna River and the Potomac River to accomplish their quest.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">His advice to anglers who wish to take up fishing and perhaps strive for Master Angler status is that \u201cyou don\u2019t need expensive fishing gear to go fishing, you just must be out fishing with the gear that you have.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">FishMaryland is Maryland\u2019s recreational fishing award program. It 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 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/compass.dnr.maryland.gov\/dnrcompassportal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">purchased online<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> 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>Talan Scott Vrabic of Rosedale has earned a Master Angler Milestone Award under the Maryland Department of Natural Resources\u2019 FishMaryland program. The award recognizes recreational anglers who catch ten trophy-sized fish of different species in Maryland.\u00a0 Vrabic is the fifth youth angler (under age 16) and one of two eleven-year-olds to secure the award. Vrabic<a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2026\/08\/04\/eleven-year-old-from-baltimore-county-named-34th-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":[2911,5429,5430,4314],"class_list":["post-48088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appnews","category-fisheries","tag-baltimore-county","tag-fishmaryland","tag-master-angler","tag-sportfishing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48088","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=48088"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48134,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48088\/revisions\/48134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}