Shad stocking

[melvinp]

You might think I'm nuts but has anyone ever heard of shad stocking in the upper Susquehanna.Just had a friend that saw the fish commission with a bunch of coolers in the Wyoming county area and just couldn't help but go and see what was going on.They told him that it was a shad stocking program that has been going on for about 10 years.A few years ago I saw something that looked like a shad in my local haunt but couldn't believe my own eyes.

 

[RyanR]

melvinp wrote:
You might think I'm nuts but has anyone ever heard of shad stocking in the upper Susquehanna.Just had a friend that saw the fish commission with a bunch of coolers in the Wyoming county area and just couldn't help but go and see what was going on.They told him that it was a shad stocking program that has been going on for about 10 years.A few years ago I saw something that looked like a shad in my local haunt but couldn't believe my own eyes.

Yes, I believe it's been part of the effort to help reestablish or rebuild the Susquehanna's shad run. I think what they've been doing is collect egg-laden females & males from the lower river and bring them to a hatchery and artificially spawn them by milking the females of eggs and the males of milt (sperm) and fertilize the eggs in containers. Then they hatch the eggs and raise them from sac fry to fingerling before trucking them upriver to release them to spend some the summer feeding & growing (and imprinting on the river's water chemistry) before heading back downriver to the bay & ocean to mature before returning on their own spawning runs.

I used to work at NJ's warm & cool water fish hatchery and in early spring they set up trap nets on certain lakes to collect some of the spawning pike and also walleye and musky too (at different times & locations). They'd truck the adults back to the hatchery, place them in holding tanks and we'd manually milk them and fertilize the eggs (using a bowl and goose feather to mix the milt!) With the smallmouth, the best way was to actually fish with rod & reel for pre-spawn smallies that we then held for spawning right in our ponds. Then we'd net them out and return them to the lake they came from. The largemouth we actually got to catch ourselves with rod & reel before then collecting the fry. Always a fun day catching a bunch of 6-10lb largemouth out of small "farm" ponds at the hatchery!

 

[foxfire]

Assuming you got paid for this!?!? Great gig!!

 

[RyanR]

foxfire wrote:
Assuming you got paid for this!?!? Great gig!!

Of course, but like $10 and hour. Don't misunderstand, I was just a seasonal fisheries worker, a laborer basically. We worked pretty hard everyday, outside mostly in any weather. There was only 1 afternoon all season that we were allowed to fish, and that was just a means to an end to get the largemouth out of the pond. None of us seasonal guys even got to go set trap nets on the various lakes. And the small mouth trip, to a private, normally closed to ANY fishing, was enjoyed by the big wigs from the Division's executive offices in Trenton.

We were college kids home for summer (I was fresh out of the military) and spent most days mucking out drained ponds, repairing inlets, cleaning out the raceways, humping bags of feed, dragging commercial-sized netfuls of hundreds of pounds of fish to then load, small net by small net, onto trucks to stock or sort by size & transfer to new ponds for further growing. It was fun but physical work, most days I came home muddy, wet, stinky and sweaty.

 

[bigjohn58]

They stock shad in the West Branch Susquehanna River. To me it is the biggest waste of PAFBC money out there!

 

[salmonoid]

http://fishandboat.com/pafish/shad/migratory_fish.pdf

American Shad are an interesting story in PA history, but ultimately with (IMHO) a sad ending. Restoration efforts, no matter what form they take, are doomed by the four dams on the lower Susquehanna.

I recommend the following book if you're interested in the shad history (hey, it's even on sale at the moment!):
http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-01805-4.html
It is overall good, but the author repeats himself a few times; he has one of the most eclectic list of titles written though.

Richard Gerstell is a former Chief of the Division of Research for the Pennsylvania Game Commission and is the author of The Steel Trap in North America (1985) and How to Survive an Atomic Bomb (1950).

The precursor to the PFBC was created because of the myriad of issues that existed that were related to early shad fishing.

 

[Kilgore_Trout]

The damming of the Susquehanna had a crucial impact on the shad run.

If you're interested in the ill-effects of damming on sea run fish (salmon, steelhead), definitely check out the documentary on Netflix called "DamNation." Although it focuses primarily on western rivers (and their dams), it's interesting and relevant look at the long-term effects damming has on a species of fish, and a watershed as a whole.

 

[bigjohn58]

Stuipd question but what good are the shad?

 

[melvinp]

Food for the flathead and the bowfin

 

[bigjohn58]

Thats pretty much the answer I was expecting melvinp! lol

 

[salmonoid]

bigjohn58 wrote:
Stuipd question but what good are the shad?

Not exactly sure how to answer the question. From an angling perspective, they are a sportfish and draw some attraction below Conowingo.

But what good is anything? It's often in the eye of the beholder. Historically, shad were an important food staple through the early 20th century. Now, I guess their goodness (or presence of a naturally reproducing population as a proxy for goodness) would indicate that their ecosystem is in a good state. Which it is not, since they can't move from the ocean into the Susquehanna and if they could, their spawning tributaries are just as choked with dams as the lower Susky is. They're a good indicator of how a bunch of state and federal agencies can spend a ton of money on fixing a problem other state and federal agencies created, and have very little to show for it.

 

[bigjohn58]

I just don't see any benefit of having them around other then for food for some larger species. Yeah a few people fish for them but it's not a very large number of people that's for sure. We have so many issues with the fish we currently have in the river I would much rather see them use their money to fix those problems before wasting it on a fish that very few care about and is knowingly a failed program.

 

[fishhead]

Witnessed an older gentleman baitfishing at Weikert land a large shad last April. I was surprised to say the least.

 

[icyguides]

Shad are very important to the river, the bay and the ocean. They are a great sport fish AND they provide forage to species like Striped bass and tuna. Striper feed on shad species year round, in the Chesapeake and ocean. Striper and tuna are some of, if not the most, popular recreational and important commercial species in the world. Shad also act as a host for freshwater mussels, which help improve water quality.

The american shad is probably the most historically notable fish in the country. It's been referred to as "the founding fish" due to it's importance in early america. Wars have been fought over shad and some think the spring shad run saved the continental army from starvation at valley forge.

 

[Chaz]

I'll bet they've been stocking shad in the Susquehanna for 30 years. The Delaware was stocked at one time too, the Lehigh is currently being stocked. We're talking about American Shad right? Cause they do stock gizzard shad for forage fish in a lot of places.

 

[Oregon_Owl]

Shad are delicious if you know how to filet them. It is a lost art. The Reading Terminal Market in Philly used to have several fish mongers who specialized in shad, seasonally harvested of course. Some people consider the roe a delicacy, but the one time I had it, I was not impressed.

 

[melvinp]

Bringing this one back from the dead I found a dead gizzard shad this weekend in the susquehanna river in wyoming county fishing for cats after all that rain it was only about 3 inches but for sure a shad.

 

[bigjohn58]

melvinp wrote:
Bringing this one back from the dead I found a dead gizzard shad this weekend in the susquehanna river in wyoming county fishing for cats after all that rain it was only about 3 inches but for sure a shad.

Use it as bait?

 

[melvinp]

Heck with that Shad pattern streamers OH YEA.

 

[sandfly]

without mussels, eels and shad the susky will die and be gone forever. they are filter feeders and help clean up the water. part of reason the susky is dying is none of those species are left except a few. also a major food source for a lot of species including smallies.