Chucky White and the “Jennifer Ann” pulled up along Harris Seafood in Grasonville on a cold December afternoon and unloaded a haul.

This day's catch is about half of the 30 basket limit per boat.  He blames the weather for that but on so many other days his oyster harvest is at or near the max. It is a more and more common catch these last couple of years.

"It's been good so far. Not as good as last year but they didn't grow as good," White said as he slid one basket of oysters after another across the dock.

But he is not choosing because many watermen aren't begging.

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While last year was a record harvest for oysters, this year will be nearly as good.

Chesapeake oysters it seems are on the rebound.

"We are seeing a great resurgence in the oyster industry, a renaissance of the oyster industry here in the Chesapeake Bay,” Director of Fisheries Marketing Steve Vilnit said, “With aquaculture coming on board as well as a great harvest that we are having with the wild product, we are seeing people recognizing Chesapeake oysters as a brand again."

And it is a brand Vilnit is trying to market again.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources is actively selling the idea that not only are Chesapeake oysters back, but they are as unique and as tasty as its more famous blue crab counterpart from the Chesapeake farm to tables around the nation.

"We are really trying to brand stuff, where it is coming from, what river it is coming from, what part of the bay it is coming from just to let people know this is a local product that's harvested and these guys are out there working hard every day through the winter," Vilnit said.

Protecting the oysters 

A rise in awareness means a rise in demand, which means a rise in price. The solid economics of this fishery and its new found population is the goal, but not at any price.

Cpl. Murray Hunt is just one of many Natural Resources Police spot checking waterman and their catch to make sure the oysters coming out of the bay are not the ones the state says should stay in.

It is a job officers of this force have been doing since the 1800s.

"About every day,” Hunt  said of how often he and his partner check the watermen’s catch. “We either do it while on patrol out on a boat. As it gets later in the afternoon we will do roadside inspections and inspections like we are today here at the seafood market.”

Watermen are issued citations and penalties if more than 5 percent of their catch is under 3 inches in size.

Much like what a Virginia man found out last January when NRP made a bust in Easton on Route 50.

Of 188 bushels on a tractor trailer headed out of state, police say all but one had up to 50 percent undersized Chesapeake oysters .

The case was eventually thrown out by an eastern shore judge, but NRP is constantly patrolling to protect oysters.

In the last five seasons, the force has issued more than 550 citations and nearly 700 warnings.

"I find it personally rewarding to do. It's a lot of work. These bushel baskets weigh a lot and being bent over on your knees, it is pretty easy in a parking lot, but out on a boat that is rocking and rolling you get seas sick sometimes, it just happens and you're cold and wet and muddy."

But the enforcement is a key to the Chesapeake oyster resurgence.

A lot of time and money has gone into restoration efforts including increasing oyster sanctuaries by 15 percent since 2010.

Oysters need a hard surface to latch onto and grow and surfaces like cement reef balls that have been dropped into the bay to foster reproduction; areas the NRP vigorously protects both by patrol and now with some new technology.

Last year the department deployed what is called the Maritime Law Enforcement Information Network, radar used to track activity around an oyster sanctuary.

On the images In Focus obtained in adjudicated oyster poaching cases, you can see a red box on the screen which marks the boundaries of the sanctuary, clearly marked with gps sensors for the signal and buoys on the water.

The grey lollipop shape on the image is a boat that was tracked by radar dredging for oysters in the protected area located in Tangier Sound on the lower bay.

The poacher was detected and arrested by NRP and then convicted last year in Somerset County.

It was one of 23 successful cases since this radar came online.

But those oysters that can come out of the bay are being harvested at numbers Maryland hasn't seen since the 80's.

It is a renaissance as delicate as the ecosystem of the bay itself; with equal parts restoration, harvest, enforcement and marketing, the Chesapeake