Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating - Boston Globe's Herring Article today

Annual herring run brings mixed bag to state rivers this year
By Jay Lindsay, Associated Press, 6/12/2003 14:38
HARWICH, Mass. (AP) The winding road to the herring run at the town reservoir is a jarring, bumpy ride, and the town's natural resource director Tom Leach says that's no accident.

In good times, the run is ''black with fish,'' Leach said, with seagulls hover overhead to snare herring off the water's surface while fishermen dip their nets and walk away five minutes later with a day's quota.

Most seasons, a rutted road was one way to discourage overcrowding. This year, traffic isn't a problem.

''They haven't been fighting their way in here because, as you can see what we've got, there's nothing to fight for,'' Leach said, pointing to a raceway virtually free of fish.

The sparse herring runs reported in Harwich and other communities this spring weren't seen everywhere in Massachusetts, where some of the roughly 100 herring runs thrived. But Phillips Brady, a herring expert with the state Division of Marine Fisheries, said stocks were generally reported down.

Officials said the Cape is likely dealing with the effects of recent dry summers, while cold weather and heavy rainfall may be factors there and elsewhere. At the same time, poaching for the valuable bait fish continues to dent populations.

''It's hard to say with just one year, whether this is a natural fluctuation or whether this is something that indicates real change,'' Brady said. ''We are following it closely.''

Herring, also called alewife, are schooling fish about a foot long that run a three-year cycle between birth and spawning age. Humans don't eat herring as much as they used to, but the fish is a staple for commercially important predators such as cod.

The fish typically occupy coastal waters in the summer and winter, then, in a springtime ritual that scientists can't fully explain, they return between March and early June to spawn in the waters where they were born.

The upriver flood of the black and silver fish, followed by their exhausted downstream descent to sea is an annual phenomenon treasured in towns around the state. The fish pour through the runs over the man-made ''ladders,'' essentially boards and concrete that form ascending levels that help the fish move upstream.

''It's amazing. It's the sheer volume (of fish). You could walk across the site,'' said Francis Pereira, chairman of the Middleborough-Lakeville Herring Fisheries Commission, which oversees the Nemasket River run.

The Nemasket run, the largest in the state with over a million fish annually, is so healthy the state transfers its herring to beef up other runs, including North Shore spawning grounds where Tim Purinton of the Massachusetts Aububon Society monitors herring.

''The numbers are definitely down from past years,'' Purinton said.

For instance, at the Little River in Gloucester, which used to see 3,000 to 4,000 herring per season, under 50 herring were counted this year, he said.

Purinton said some fish may have died when cold weather delayed a rise in water temperature to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, the trigger for herring spawning migration. Heavy rainfall also creates a swift downstream flow that's difficult for the herring to negotiate, especially in places where fish ladders are antiquated, he said.

On the Cape, Harwich's Leach blames the poor run on a dry season three years ago that lowered the water table and dried up streams exiting the prime spawning ponds, trapping newly hatched herring to die or be eaten.

Wareham herring agent Jack Dixon said he negotiated with local cranberry bog owners to keep levels adequate during the drought, and this year's run of about 900,000 herring was strong. In Mashpee, according to herring warden Michael Rose, the run was sporadic.

''We had good numbers on certain days,'' he said. ''But there were days when we saw only one or two an hour, which is ridiculous.''

Anglers stake out runs because live herring are the best bait for stripped bass, the wildly popular sport fish, according to Ron Gramazio of Yarmouth. After 2½ hours at the Harwich run on an early June day, Gramazio had netted one herring.

''I've been all over the place trying to get fish,'' Gramazio said, standing over the Harwich reservoir fish ladder in faded jeans and a fishing hat. ''Last year it was great. This year, right from the get-go, it's been horrible.''

The rebounding bass population has increased the value of herring. Rose has no doubt poachers who take more than their limit and scoop fish at off-hours in illegal spots are affecting Mashpee's run. Rose and his dog have waded upriver and found illegal nets and makeshift dams aimed at pooling the herring for easy trapping, he said.

Brady said while poaching is a concern, it's one of many when it comes to monitoring the population. Herring are extremely fecund, laying up to 345,000 eggs in one spawning season, so dips in population can be erased if nature cooperates, he said.

''They're really amazing creatures,'' he said.

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