Shad look like the “perfect” fish: forked tail, tapered body, and silvery all over, with a dark spot just behind the gill. Shad can grow longer than two feet and weigh more than a watermelon. Shad is one of Maine’s native fishes that migrate between rivers and the ocean. The shad is related to alewives, blueback herring, and Atlantic herring; it is much larger, fights harder on a line, and tastes better than its cousins.
Fisheries biologists believe that at one time, shad probably inhabited virtually every river and tributary along the Atlantic coast of North America, from Labrador to Florida. People in the Connecticut, the Hudson, the Delaware, and the Chesapeake Bay regions are well acquainted with shad; less so here in Maine. Although shad once supported major commercial fisheries and were more abundant than salmon, stripers, or sturgeon, shad were also among the first migratory species to disappear here. Shad are sensitive to changes in temperature, light, and water flow, and are skittish about fishways. Dams and pollution quickly drove them from Maine rivers. Two centuries later, shad are benefiting from cleaner, more free-flowing rivers. They are coming back to Maine’s waters.
Read more at Natural Resources Council of Maine.
Photo: Researcher Joe Zydlewski holds an American shad from the Penobscot River.
Catherine Schmitt 