Herring at the Canal. . . 20 years ago

[rickhern]

Originally Posted by Mike P

Well, I'll tell ya what, and Rick Hern can back me up on this, but in the mid to late 1980s, we used to only have a handful of guys fishing herring at the mouth of the run. It was so uncrowded we could float herring under a balloon, and walk them all the way to the Cribbin if we wanted to. I can remember one night, the Saturday of Mother's Day weekend, when we hammered fish all tide, and it was just Rick, his cousin, and myself.

It turned into the zoo right around 1989.

No doubt Mike. A quick hop over the fence and a quick throw with the castnet and we were set for a tide. I always had a castnet and basket with me and was generally able to net pogies about half the time either in the run or running along the bank.(had to keep a spool of ande with me for net repair)

[robc22]

I use to bike over to carter Beale as a kid. I would catch herring and sell them on the spot to the Asian folks that came down from Boston looking to buy some......I always had to remember to save a few for my mother.First to be turned into the vegetable garden and secondly so she could pickle some for food. If I forgot to bring some home I would catch hell........Later on I found that the herring were great lobster bait and in a pinch the herring would catch an eel or two in my eel pots......Many people used the herring resource in a manner that had absolutely nothing to do with striper fishing.......