The Onancock Chronicles the Eastern shore

Clams and oysters ..... I'm hoping to get an aquaculture permit.
Now your talking !
Don't you have to own the bottom land to get a permit?
Depends on the Local / State rules ..... Rhode Island does lease out plenty of 'non owned ' land aka State waters ............
Flower Oyster in Oyster Bay leases 1700 acres from the Town ........
State of Fl has been leasing to Independent Baymen for Aquaculture for over 20 years .... They are even eligible to get Federal Crop Insurance
 
What I didn't realize is how many barrier Islands are on the Ocean side in that region .... Must be some great fishing ..........in between those barriers and the Eastern Shore .......
 
Now your talking !

Depends on the Local / State rules ..... Rhode Island does lease out plenty of 'non owned ' land aka State waters ............
Flower Oyster in Oyster Bay leases 1700 acres from the Town ........
State of Fl has been leasing to Independent Baymen for Aquaculture for over 20 years .... They are even eligible to get Federal Crop Insurance

I'm very familiar with the RI & CT rules and the NY rules for GSB, I was asking about the VA rules.
 
Still not an answer to the question of what is required in the creeks around Onancock. Those creeks look to be relatively narrow and an aquaculture operation could restrict navigation.
Every lease by every State takes many things into consideration , the amount of current life on the bottom , many States require an population study , water quality is considered , so is conflicts with residential areas and conflicts to navigation .. Finally , if the State agrees that the location is suitable , a permit from the Army Corp is usually also needed ...........
Been there done that ...:)
 
area is famous for blue claws, clams, oysters & mussels - big shellfish aea...................in addition to regular fish of course

Your south shore bass up north are arriving now to winter over in the Chesapeake - some substantially large fish are being taken.

I know John's been checking out requirements for aquafarming any waterfront area he seems to be interested in fairly thoroughly.
 
Still not an answer to the question of what is required in the creeks around Onancock. Those creeks look to be relatively narrow and an aquaculture operation could restrict navigation.

They're wider than they appear Mike - the actual channel coming up the middle of the creek is narrow with shallow water stretching pretty far in either direction outside of the channel. Can't take a deep vee boat into them - Carolina Skiffs & other flat bottom boats can get part way in. Very few boaters head into the shallow areas unless they're looking to beach the craft & spend some time on the many beaches that line the Creek. But no one's actually boating through there.

But there's a lot of skinny water for crabbing. clamming & oystering without interfering with navigation.

Many branches off the creek where there is no real navigation but perfect for shell fishing & reachable by a small (John Boat or a Dory Boat?). Some of those "branches" are untravelled & somewhat remote. If you've got property along the shoreline - if you dropped a few traps in there unpermited no one would even know.
 
Last edited:
What I didn't realize is how many barrier Islands are on the Ocean side in that region .... Must be some great fishing ..........in between those barriers and the Eastern Shore .......

from what I've heard (seen reported) - you can target tun, marlin etc. not much more than 20 or 30 miles offshore. Gulf stream comes in fairly close to shore just on the other side of those barrier Islands. Very shallow between the Barrier Islands. Lots of channels. You need to know where they are. And they do fill in during winter storms.

Went out with a guy I met on line down there. Keeps two boats (21 CC skiff & 40 foot something or other). Went out with him early spring to do a little fluke fishing (they call them flounder) & to check out the channels he uses to take his 40 footer out to the other side. Found a lot of the chanels blocked from some pretty bad winter storms we had that year. This was about 4 years ago.

So he spent a good amount of his time remarking channels on his GPS. This was out of Quinby VA into Wachapreague.

You also have a shot at tuna & a host of other good size fish in the Bay.
 
Last edited:
Indian - American Indian Dom

Machipongo: The Matchipungoes were one of the larger native tribes on the Eastern Shore and established several villages here. One village was near Wachapreague and another was near Brownsville in Northampton. The word now spelled as Machipongo means fine dust and flies and was the Algonquin name for Hog Island.
 
Machipongo means fine dust and flies and was the Algonquin name for Hog Island. Now that's a advertising campaign that realtors' would kill for.. :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:


At least my burg's name of Pemaquid is Abenaki for situated far out. That has better advertisement potential, especially with recreational weed becoming legal here...
 
BTW - Hog Island is no longer inhabited. Some of the homes that were "barged" to shore are still standing & fetch a fair price in the housing market. They are considered very valuable & of an architectural style all their own. I took a look at two of them - 1 in the town of Oyster & the other in the town of Cheriton when I was looking for houses down here. I wasn't impressed..........

Hog Island is one of the Virginia Barrier Islands located southeast of Exmore in Northampton County, Virginia, and is a part of the Virginia Coast Reserve of The Nature Conservancy. The island, then known as Machipongo Island was first settled in 1672 by a group of 22 English colonists. The island was later abandoned and remained uninhabited until around the time of the American Revolution when it was resettled. In the late 1800s, at least five lavish hunting and fishing clubs that primarily catered to wealthy sportsmen from the Northeast were established on Virginia's barrier islands; one of the largest was in the town of Broadwater, Virginia, on Hog Island. Founded in the mid-19th century the town was located in a clearing in the pine forest two miles from the ocean in the center of the island. In the 1930s when rapid beach erosion caused by several hurricanes that flooded the entire island made its continued existence untenable, many of the houses and other buildings in the town of Broadwater were floated by barge to the mainland and still stand in the towns of Willis Wharf and Oyster today.

The Hog Island Light, a coastal beacon that was once the second tallest lighthouse in the United States stood for half a century on the southern end of Hog Island near Broadwater. It was decommissioned and demolished in 1948 when shoreline erosion threatened to bring it down. A Coast Guard station on Hog Island was later closed. The site where the lighthouse once stood is now nearly a mile out to sea.

In 2008, in conjunction with the Barrier Islands Center in Machipongo, Virginia, filmmaker James Spione directed a documentary, Our Island Home, which featured three of the last surviving people to be born on Hog Island. The film grew out of an ongoing oral history project at the Center designed to record survivors' memories of a bygone way of life on the island.

Since 1987 Hog Island has served as a major ecological research location for the Virginia Coast Reserve Long-Term Ecological Research (VCR/LTER) project [1]. Hog Island is one of three primary ecological research stations used by faculty and students at the University of Virginia.
 
📱 Fish Smarter with the NYAngler App!
Launch Now

Fishing Reports

Latest articles

Back
Top