Who’s been back to see ‘em?

[Fish_Eye]

You may not be able to catch them, in many places you can no longer fish with them, but at least you can watch the few that are left return to their natal water. Who’s been to their local streams to watch for signs of a buckeye run?

I listen for the sound of peepers, I eagerly await the emergence of skunk cabbage, the first native plant to surface through the soil and flower, but for me it’s the return of the alewives that truly signals the new fishing season. Sure there’s the ritual of opening day in fresh water, but that fishery is so homogenized, pasteurized and artificial, it can’t hold a candle to the magic of watching river herring fighting their way up the skinny water to spawn.

How many of you are creatures of habit and find yourself driving out of the way to check out the local creeks?

I found a nice chart to help easily identify the different herring species.
http://www.dem.ri.gov/programs/bnatr...pdf/herrid.pdf

[Pete_G]

How can you not?...

[nightprowler]

i was there yesterday...

[nightprowler]

nother

[fishsmith]

Yesterday I checked, Pembroke, Plymouth and the Canal, no fish for me to see, but it won't be long.

[Rappin Mikey]

Found a few at one of my Spring holes on Saturday in CT. None yet at my spots in Western MA.

[djfishes]

anyone here anything about Gilbert Stewart?

[djfishes]

i have a friend who is going next week to check out the ct river for shad

[djfishes]

going to throw some shad darts out there on ultra light

[Swimmer]

They are there!

[djfishes]

what the shads?

[Swimmer]

Herring

[big jay]

This is why the herring runs are all closed...

[wetsuit'nmtk]

how recent is that photo?

[djfishes]

are those fishing boats ?

[big jay]

That photo is from last summer - those are Midwater Herring trawlers - each vessel is about 120' and they pair trawl for herring (two boats get together and tow one massive net).
There are about 40 of them based out of New Bedford, Gloucster, and Portland Maine, and each year they are taking millions of pounds of Herring out of the Gulf of Maine and Inshore Waters.

Herring #'s in the runs aren't down because too many guys are scooping them up for bass bait -- it's these factory trawlers that catch them by the tractor trailer load when they go back out to sea.

Check out this site for some more info on the guys fighting this.
www.choircoalition.org

[ilovetwofish]

I went to gilbert sat,sun,and mon nothing.

[stripersnipr]

Just back from Middleboro and like Swimmer said they are there. Not as thick as some years but it looks like a decent run.

[Canalman]

It's not exactly a Raven but....

[Mike P]

They've been in Wareham for 3 weeks now.

And you can't account for the abnormal depletion of Bournedale by blaming only the trawlers. That should affect all of the local runs equally, including Wareham and Middleboro. A share of the blame for Bournedale has to rest at the feet of fishermen. Poaching was an epidemic there in the 1990s. I don't blame the guys who played by the rules, got their permit, and their daily allotment. There was a lot of stocking of livewells by midnight netting going on, and the enforcement was non-existent. Too easy access, too lax enforcement

[bloocrab]

And you can't account for the abnormal depletion of Bournedale by blaming only the trawlers. That should affect all of the local runs equally, including Wareham and Middleboro. A share of the blame for Bournedale has to rest at the feet of fishermen.

I don't fully agree with that Mike....you have to admit that technology has only gotten better and better over the years, I can't imagine the amount of fish taken by trawlers is even slightly close to the numbers taken by fishermen, poached or legally. If they seriously want to help the stock, they KNOW what they need to do. I believe it's all economics...and by denying the recreational fishermen, it shows that they are at the least....doing something. IMO -

[gone fishin]

OMEGA OIL That's the company that uses aircraft to spot the school and the trawlers as shown to scoop the entire school. The bycatch is unbelievable also. No Bait = No Gamefish.

[bobber]

Omega is not the one scooping up herring- they fish only for bunker (outta Reedville VA). this is local fishing boats that catch (and transfer their catch at sea) so they can sell to the Russians et al............they sit right under the Jamestown Bridge most days.

[Fish_Eye]

Bobber, gone fishin, you're both off the mark on this one. The trawlers are big business boats that put a stake in the sand by building a processing plant in New Bedford and spending about 12 million dollars and providing meaningless jobs...and the herring don't necessarily go to Russia...it's worse than that, some of them go to Spain where they feed the penned up tuna...then when the tuna show up in our waters they can't find the herring, they lose fat content and can't be sold for high market prices to the Japanese -- they now get about a 70% rejection rate for the lean, mean and hungry tuna off MA waters.

Observer coverage has been cut to almost nothing and even when they spent four million dollars for observers, they weren't even capable of discerning how many river herring or bluebacks were bycatch vs. the targeted Atlantic herring.