shad enter rivers, their sides and bellies are 

 white and silvery, and the backs have a green 

 to dark-blue metallic luster. The color on the 

 back fades to brown as the fish continue in 

 fresh water. Fins are pale green, the dorsal 

 and caudal fins somewhat dusky in the larger 

 fish and darker at the tips. Adults have the 

 following meristic characters (predominant 

 numbers in parentheses): dorsal fin, 16 to 21 

 rays (18 or 19); anal fin, 19 to 24 rays (21 or 



22); left pectoral fin, 14 to 18 rays (16 or 17); 

 ventral scutes, 34 to 40 (35 to 37 with 21 or 

 22 anterior to the ventral fins and 14 or 15 

 posterior to the ventral fins); gill rakers on 

 the lower limb of the first arch, 62 to 76 (68 

 to 72); lateral line scales, 52 to 64 (56 to 60); 

 vertebrae, 53 to 59 (56 to 57); and no teeth. 

 Hildebrand and Schroeder (1 928), Leach (1925), 

 and Leim (1924) gave characters to distinguish 

 shad from other members of the same family. 



DISTRIBUTION OF SHAD 



The range of shad on the Atlantic coast 

 is from the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada 

 to the St. Johns River, Fla. They are 

 most abundant from North Carolina to Con- 

 necticut. 



The U.S. Fish Commission made many at- 

 tempts to introduce shad in waters where they 

 were not native (Hildebrand and Schroeder, 

 1928; Leach, 1925). They were introduced in 

 streams of the Mississippi River drainage. 



rivers of peninsular Florida, Colorado 

 streams, sind tributaries to lakes, including the 

 Great Lakes and Great Salt Lake, but these 

 introductions were unsuccessful. Shad were 

 successfully introduced in the Sacramento 

 River, Calif., and in the Columbia River be- 

 tween Washington and Oregon. From these 

 rivers they spread to other streams, and now 

 they occur from the Mexican border to Cook 

 Inlet, Alaska (Neave, 1954). 



LIFE HISTORY OF SHAD 



The American shad is anadromous, spending 

 most of its life in the ocean but ascending 

 coastal rivers to spawn. Fish attain sexual 

 maturity at the age of 2 to 6 yrs. The young 

 remain in the natal stream until autumn and 

 then enter the ocean. 



MIGRATIONS 



Stevenson (1899) reported ". . . it was for- 

 nnerly considered that the entire body of shad 

 wintered in the south and started northward in 

 a vast school at the beginning of the year, . . ., 

 sending a detachment up each successive 

 stream, this division, by a singular method of 

 selection, being the individuals that were bred 

 in those respective streams, the last portion 

 of the great school entering the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence. 



"But zoologists now recognize . . . the young 

 shad hatched out in any particular river re- 

 main within a moderate distance off the miouth 

 of that stream until the period occurs for their 

 inland migration . . . entering the rivers as 

 soon as the temperature of the water is 

 suitable." 



Talbot and Sykes (1958) and Sykes and Talbot 

 (1958) analyzed information from tagging stud- 

 ies carried out over a period of 19 yr. by the 

 Fish amd Wildlife Service and described the 

 Atlantic coast migration of shad. Talbot and 

 Sykes (1958) said ". . . tag recoveries have 

 revealed a consistent migration pattern, . . . 

 After spawning, adult shad in streams from 

 Chesapeake Bay to the Connecticut River 



migrate northward and spend the summer and 

 fall in the Gulf of Maine. Canadian shad mi- 

 grate southward to the Gulf of Maine and also 

 spend the summer and fall there. There is 

 little evidence as to where shad spend the 

 winter months; but it appears that they are 

 scattered along the Middle Atlantic area, for 

 beginning in January or February as the 

 spawning season approaches, they move in- 

 shore. . . They then migrate either north or 

 south to their native streams and spawn, . . . 

 The young shad leave their native streams in 

 the fall, probably spend the winters in the 

 Middle Atlantic area, migrate to the Gulf of 

 Maine each summer along with the adults, and 

 when mature return to their native streams 

 to spawn . . , 



"From these studies it appears that shad, 

 like salmon, migrate long distances in the 

 sea . . . How or by what mechamism they are 

 guided has not yet been satisfactorily deter- 

 mined." 



Recent captures of shad in offshore waters 

 have indicated further that they spend the win- 

 ter along the Middle Atlantic area. Warren F. 

 Rathjen, Exploratory Fishing and Gear Re- 

 search Base, Gloucester, Mass., (writtencom- 

 munication dated February 24, 1961) reported 

 ". . . 49 shad ranging from 315 mm. to 473 

 mm. long were captured at 87 to 126 fathoms 

 during Cruise 61-1 of the My, Delaware op- 

 erating along the 'edge' of the Continental 

 Shelf between Nantucket Lightship amd the 

 Hudson Canyon (Lat. N. 40° 01' - Long. 

 70° 41') from January 23 to February 2, 

 1961." 



