NATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 269 



dains and natural falls, for the latter form absolute barriers, whereas extensive 

 fisheries merely limit the number of fish ascending to the extreme range of the river 

 and not the length of that range; yet in many cases they affect the future abundance 

 of the species even more than the dams and natural falls. This is particularly 

 noticeable in those narrow streams whose fluvial characteristics extend nearly or quite 

 to the sea, as in most of the rivers between the St. Johns and the Neuse, and to some 

 extent in the Susquehanna, the Hudson, the Connecticut, etc. In the Ogeechee, 

 Savannah, Edisto, Pee Dee, and Cape Fear, the great bulk of the catch is obtained in 

 the extreme lower end within 30 or 40 miles of the sea, and comparatively few shad 

 ascend as far as the spawning grounds. In the Connecticut nearly all the shad are 

 caught within 20 miles of the mouth. The dams in those rivers perform a very unim- 

 portant part in limiting the run of fish, for few shad ever reach those obstructions. 



In the broad estuaries tributary to the sounds of North Carolina and to the 

 Chesapeake and Delaware bays the effect of netting is not so apparent, yet even in 

 those waters only a small percentage of the shad ever reach the spawning-grounds. 

 Formerly the great bulk of the yield was obtained from the middle and upper 

 sections of the rivers, while at present nearly all the catch is obtained in the lower 

 section and in the salt water of the estuaries. The extension of the fisheries into the 

 estuaries is of recent origin, dating only from the middle of the present century, and 

 their development has been principally during the past twenty years. It requires 

 large and costly apparatus to prosecute the fisheries there, and forms suitable have 

 come into use only quite recently. With the exception of drift nets in Delaware Bay, 

 New York Bay, and one or two less important places, and the mackerel purse seines, 

 which take a few shad on the New England coast, pound nets and stake nets are the 

 only forms of apparatus employed in catching shad in salt water. Over 90 per cent 

 of the shad caught in the salt water of the Chesapeake region are taken in pound 

 nets, yet the use of that apparatus there dates only from 1865, and not until 1875 

 were they extensively employed. Stake nets and pound nets, which catch practically 

 all the shad taken in the salt water of North Carolina, have been used in that region 

 only since 1865. 



At present nearly one-half of the total shad yield on the Atlantic seaboard is 

 obtained in salt water, and those fisheries are becoming more extensive each year. 

 Table B, on page 271, shows that in 1896, 6,252,464 shad, over 47 per cent of the total 

 yield, were caught in regions which half a century ago yielded none whatever; this in 

 some measure compensating for the 4,000 miles of river-course from which they are 

 now wholly excluded and the lengths from which the exclusion is partial. It thus 

 appears that the principal change in the fisheries during the past fifty years has been 

 one of location rather than extent of the total yield, the great increase in the estuaries 

 compensating for the decrease in the headwaters. This change in the fishing grounds 

 results in a large portion of the fish being taken before they reach the spawning areas 

 in fresh water, thereby preventing them from adding their quota to future supply 

 almost as effectually as though they were excluded therefrom by means of dams or 

 otherwise. But the same result is accomplished when the fish are caught after they 

 have reached those areas and before they have spawned. Furthermore, moving the 

 seines and other apparatus of capture over the spawning-grounds disturbs and drives 

 away the fish from those areas, and also destroys many of the eggs and young shad 

 already there. 



