Voice of the Bay

Mick Blackistone got his first taste of the Chesapeake Bay by jumping off the end of his family’s Maryland pier when he 8 or 9 years old.

He would surface with handful after handful of meaty oysters taken from a bed his St. Mary’s County ancestors had tended for more than 10 generations. Then he’d throw out a fishing line for double strikes of wriggling perch – or pull in crabs so thick and plentiful that they’d cling to his bait in pairs.