Shad is a fish you seldom hear of and not many New Hampshire anglers target it. But in earlier days, shad used to swarm our coastal streams during the spring spawning run.
In the Granite State, when I was growing up, if people mentioned shad, they were not referring to actual shad in our coastal streams but to whitefish in our lakes, which had been misnamed shad. “Shad” fishing during the winter was hugely popular, in fact “shad”-whitefish were often the most sought after fish by ice fishermen on Lake Winnipesaukee and several of our other big mid-state lakes.
Our shad runs on the coast are but remnants of their former numbers, but one stream, Salmon Falls, does have enough of a shad run to provide some pretty good fishing.
Our real shad are very bony and only a very few, very skilled people know the secrets of filleting them to provide a boneless fillet. Fish and Game used to have in its library a movie devoted to how to do this, and they probably still have it, unless it was burnt up in the fire that took so many important documents years ago.
Some of our more southern New England states and New York still have huge runs of shad that are targeted by a lot of anglers. The runs in the lower Connecticut, Hudson and Delaware rivers are historical. They provide an incredible amount of angling opportunity.
Recreational shad fishermen are almost universally catch-and-release folks. Not because shad are not great eating but because of their lack of ability to bone them out.
But a big commercial fishery does target these fish and, obviously, the majority of these are boned-out by experienced fish cutters for the table. We’ve eaten some of these in Connecticut and they were wonderful.
Shad ban on Hudson
In a controversial move, the State of New York is banning all recreational shad fishing this year in the Hudson River but is allowing the commercial take to continue.
Brad Burns, president of Stripers Forever, says the pending decision by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to eliminate all recreational fishing for American shad in the Hudson River while continuing to allow the commercial gill net fishery sets a very bad precedent according.
“Essentially, the DEC is privatizing the Hudson River shad resource by forcing sport fishermen who want a shad for a meal to buy that fish from a member of a select group of commercial fishermen who have been given the exclusive right to harvest a public resource,” Burns says. “The failure of the DEC to fully address the precipitous decline in the Hudson River shad population — let alone the lack of social fairness in its proposed regulation — is appalling. The current Hudson River shad stock collapse makes it clear to us that all directed fishing for shad should be stopped in order to help the population rebound.
Burns added, “We know that recreational fishermen would willingly support such a measure. But the DEC also needs to outlaw the use of gill nets. Already banned along large areas of America’s coastline because they indiscriminately kill a variety of non-targeted fish and wildlife, gill nets are especially lethal in delicate nursery areas like the Hudson River.”
Stripers Forever has asked Gov. David Paterson to reverse the DEC decision and to instruct the DEC to put an end to the use of gill nets in the river.
For further information, go to stripers@whatifnet.com.
Openings for Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops
Local outdoorsmen are getting more big shopping destinations.
Cabela’s has scheduled a May 15 opening for its new store in Scarborough, Maine.
And Bass Pro Shops has opened a huge store in Foxboro, Mass., near Gillette Stadium. Although you’d think that Bass Pro Shops was dedicated to the bass fishing clients only, nothing could be further from the truth. The rival Cabela’s for the diversity of the gear that they carry, and Foxboro isn’t all that far a drive for Granite Staters.
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