184 THE SHAD STREAMS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


was between five and five and a half pounds. Now in the Delaware 
river a four-pound fish is a curiosity. A catch is recorded as having 
been made near Burlington, New Jersey, in 1843, of 317 shad averaging 
over six pounds each. Forty shad then filled a pork barrel, mackerel 
barrels not being in use. Over a hundred of the present deteriorated 
fishes are now required for this purpose.” 
A company composed of Mr. B. Wilkins and his two partners carried 
to market and sold the product of sixty-three nets for about thirteen 
years prior to 1840. From Mr. Wilkins’ statements it appears that in 
1870 and 1871 no single gilling-net approached in the number of its 
catch to the quantity formerly obtained, though the length of the nets 
had been greatly increased. He instances the case of one gilling-seine 
of 200 fathoms, used in the vicinity of Fort Delaware, as having taken 
while he was carrying for them 850 shad in one drift, and says that at 
no time for five years previous to 1870 were over 200 taken in the same 
time, and 100 perhaps would be a high average. 
Great diminution in the quantity of fishes taken was also experienced 
at the shore fisheries. To such an extent did it reach that many were 
abandoned as unprofitable. In evidence of this it may be said that until 
1820 (which was probably the most productive year for the shad fish- 
eries ever known) there was no appreciable decrease in the numbers or 
size of shad. It was in that year that the great haul of 10,800 shad was 
made at Fancy Hill (now Gloucester), the largest haul by several thou- 
sard fishes ever made upon the river Delaware. 
The Delaware river was in a more depleted condition than the lower 
Susquehanna. During the season of 1873 there were not on the Dela- 
ware six fisheries which proved remunerative. The largest shore fish- 
eries upon the river by the slenderness of their yield entailed an actual 
loss upon their owners. 
For twenty-five years preceding the first restocking (1872) the Dela- 
ware with shad none were seen further up the river than Milford, 
although they had been at one time plentiful at Hancock, over fifty 
miles above Lackawaxen. Thousands were annually taken between 
Lackawaxen and Hancock in bush seines and eel weirs, the rough and 
rocky part of the river preventing the drawing of nets. Not only the 
mature fish were captured, but the young fry were destroyed in immense 
numbers, on their way down to the ocean, by hundreds of traps. This 
indiscriminate slaughter of shad, from the upper stretches of the river 
to tide water, resulted in their disappearance above Milford, and in 1872 
the fisheries at that place yielded only single fish where they had once 
rewarded the fishermen with enormous hauls. 
Tn 1875, three years after the restocking experiments had been tried, 
there was a notable increase in the catches at Milford, and in 1876 shad 
again appeared as far up as Lackawaxen. The increase has been large 
and steady ever since and shad arrive at that point in large schools 
