130 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



Fish Commission contributed of eggs and fry 54,51 1,000, or 21,188,500 more than the 

 State was able to obtain from the river itself, and it needs no violent stretch of the 

 imagination to picture what the condition of the Hudson as a shad river would now be 

 had it not been for the contributions of eggs and fry from other rivers. 



What is the remedy ? There is but one, and that is to let sufficient shad up the 

 river to their breeding grounds to keep up the stock by natural and artificial methods- 



The nets are so thick in the lower river that it is a wonder any breeding shad 

 reach the upper spawning grounds. I saw one net stretched entirely across the 

 river a little way below Garrisons, and while it could be maintained in position it 

 was an effectual bar to the shad running up stream. 



The Commissioners do not make the laws which govern the times and methods 

 of fishing in the State, nor have they any power in the matter except to suggest 

 amendments which experience teaches them are necessary, just and proper to main- 

 tain the food supply of fish and game ; and then their province is to enforce the 

 laws as best they can with the means at their disposal. The shad law is not as 

 they would have it. It provides that there shall be an open season between March 

 14th and June 15th for netting shad, but said nets shall not be drawn nor fish 

 taken therefrom between sunset on Saturday night and sunrise on Monday morning, 

 unless by reason of the inclemency of the weather said nets cannot be drawn prior 

 to sunset on Saturday night, in which case it shall be lawful to take fish as soon as 

 the weather will permit. 



With this law in force the Commission has been unable to secure a sufficient 

 number of ripe fish at Catskill to furnish eggs to keep up the stock without aid 

 from other sources ; and it is positive in its conviction that all nets should be lifted 

 and the fish allowed to ascend unmolested two consecutive days and three nights 

 in each week if the Hudson is to maintain its standing as a shad river. A shad 

 netter of forty-five years' experience, one who nets in the Highlands and in the 

 upper river as well, told me that he had come to believe that the nets should not 

 be hauled more than four days in the week. Spawning shad are taken at night, 

 and for this reason it is recommended that the nets should not be fished for three 

 nights. Nets hauled on the same ground will rarely get ripe shad during the day, 

 while at night nearly every haul will get spawning fish when they get anything. 

 I say when they get anything, for I have seen a hundred-fathom net hauled on good 

 ground in the height of the so-called shad season with only a few beggarly herring 

 and not a shad in it. 



At the Catskill fishing ground of Capt. John Pinder, where the State gets its 

 spawning fish, a haul of the net that produces fifty shad is considered very good ; 

 but these same grounds have yielded 406 shad at a single haul. Albert Hart, one 



