REPORT OF THE COillllSSIOyERS 'xi 



Geographical Range of the Shad. 



The Bay of Fundy shad have been always regarded by those qualified to judge 

 as the best of all shad, especially the summer shad, called in some localities fall shad. 

 These summer shad frequent the muddy flats of the bay during the months of July 

 and August. On these flats they acquire, not only a rich fat quality, but an excel- 

 lence of flavour not equalled by the shad taken in any other locality. But the 

 schools of shad have a wide distribution along the Atlantic Coast. Indeed from the 

 Mexican Gulf to the St. Lawrence schools of these fish occur or have occurred. 

 Xearly every river on the Atlantic coast was invaded by immense schools — Drs. 

 Jordon and Everman said in their work on [North American Fishes — and there is good 

 ground for the opinion that hardly a stream on the whole twenty-five hundred miles 

 of the Canadian coast alon^ the Atlantic was not a resort for spawning shad. From 

 the St. Croix to the St. Lawrence, including such vast tributaries as the Ottawa 

 river, ascending scjiools of shad were noticed, and they were fully utilized by the 

 residents for domestic purposes, as has already been pointed out. This esteemed 

 fish, though less plentiful further south, occurs in some abundance even in the waters 

 of the Gulf of Mexico, but they have been regarded as a different species, and fishery 

 authorities have determined that several species of shad exist. The date of their 

 ascent from the sea also varies. Thus in Florida, in the St. John river of the South, 

 ihey appear in November and are found in some abundance during the three or four 

 fucceeding months, especially in February and March. In the Savannah river and 

 .it Charleston, Si^uth Carolina, they appear in -January and off Norfolk in February; 

 while in the Potomac river, a river long famed for shad, they are first taken in 

 March and April. Later still they appear in the Hudson river, viz., from April to 

 the end of June, and during the same period they are taken in New York bay. In 

 the Delaware river. May is the principal fishing month; while in the Connecticut 

 river thSy come in from the sea about the middle of April, and are said to disappear 

 again about June 20th. During the later period of their stay they frequent the 

 fstuaries and rivers of Massachusetts and Maine. Euns of shad formerly passed 

 up the St. Croix river between New Brunswick and Maine, indeed in an official 

 report in 1868, the river is described as " fonnerly teeming with shad, salmon and 

 alewives."— (Dept's Rep., 1B&8. p. 23.) 



In the Bay of Fundy the schools of shad appear off Charlotte county shore New 

 Tirunswick, in May, and the Lorneville fishermen take them from the middle of May 

 ■.intil the 5th of June. They reach the St. John river at the earliest about the middle 

 rf April. They ascend the river and are on the spawning gi-ounds by about the 

 middle of May, the best fishing being from !May 24th to June 10th up the river — the 

 early June shad, it is claimed, are large fish. 



The ' New York Fishing Gazette ' (on March 25, 1905) said, regarding the local 

 nature of the schools of shad on the United States shores : 



In all there are about 25,000 men employed in the shad fisheries of the Atlantic 

 seaboard of the United States, and it is estimated that about 15.000,000 shad are 

 caught annually. About March 1 the shad usually reach the lower end of the Chesa- 

 peake bay, two weeks later they are in the Delaware, and about April 1 they reach 

 New York waters. After remaining for some months they disappear and are not 

 seen until the following year. For years it was believed that the entire bodv of sh.nd 



