He has been fishing since 1 964, 

 when he was still in high school. River 

 herring used to bring in three-quarters of 

 his living. But as herring stocks have 

 dwindled and N.C. Marine Fisheries 

 Commission (MFC) regulations have 

 become more and more stringent, his 

 take-home pay from the fishery also has 

 dried up. "Since 1994, it's been cut 

 down to just over 20 percent from the 

 restrictions," Byrum says. Where he 

 used to catch up to $40,000 worth of 

 herring a year, he now catches $10,000. 



His father, grandfather and great- 

 grandfather before him were commer- 

 cial fishers. Like them, Byrum expects 

 to keep fishing till he dies — but he 

 doesn't expect anyone to follow in his 

 footsteps. "I've enjoyed being a 

 commercial fisherman, but I wouldn't 

 want my kids to do it. They couldn't 

 survive. Crabbing basically keeps us 

 alive now." 



a Shad and 

 Herring primer 



When North Carolina's dogwoods 

 bloom, the first shad and herring can't 

 be far behind, swimming up the rivers to 

 spawn. First come the hickory shad in 

 mid- to late-February, then the alewives 

 in March. Bluebacks and American shad 

 follow in three or four weeks. They are 

 all anadromous fish that leave their salty 

 ocean homes to seek spawning grounds 



in the shallow freshwater creeks where 

 they hatched. 



When the first explorers and settlers 

 arrived, they found rivers teeming with 

 fish. In 1612, William Strachey noted 

 "Shadds great store of a Yard long" in 

 Chesapeake Bay, and "great Shoells of 

 Herrings." In North Carolina, 

 Algonquian Indians tended weirs across 

 the streams. Settlers raided those weirs 

 or built their own, and "kippered" the 

 fish with smoke and salt much as their 

 European forebears had done. 



For generations, riverside commu- 

 nities celebrated this yearly provenance. 

 The returning schools of shad and 

 herring marked the end of each long, 

 hungry winter and brought the promise 

 of spring. Families scooped a year's 

 worth of fish suppers from the water 

 with nets and baskets of all kinds. Most 

 shad were eaten immediately, as they 

 didn't cure well with salt, but river 

 herring could keep for a year or more if 

 properly cut and brined. 



In the 1 760s, commercial fisheries 

 were established on several of the state's 

 rivers, and pickled herring were shipped 

 up the coast to Baltimore, New York 

 and Boston; west to the Great Plains; 

 and south to the West Indies. 



Two Dutch brothers introduced the 

 pound net in 1 869, vastly improving the 

 efficiency of the herring fishery 

 overnight. By the turn of the century, 

 shad and herring numbers already were 



dropping markedly. Technological 

 innovations and industrial expansion were 

 taking their toll in the form of over- 

 fishing, pollution and the destruction of 

 spawning grounds. 



Still, North Carolina's fishing culture 

 remained largely unchanged. Electricity 

 and refrigeration were slow to spread to 

 the remote eastern reaches of the state, 

 and river herring remained one of the few 

 meat sources poor families could afford. 

 Until the mid- 1900s, most households in 

 eastern North Carolina would have a 

 barrel of "corned" herring stashed 

 somewhere in the kitchen. 



Now the dependence on shad and 

 herring is almost a memory. Though 

 some bluebacks and alewives go to fish- 

 packing plants for transformation into 

 herring with cream sauce or other 

 delicacies, most become fertilizer, 

 fishmeal or bait. Shad are still a fairly 

 valuable market fish, but their numbers 

 have dropped so drastically that they are 

 pursued mostly for sport. 



Though commercial fishers are 

 occasionally teased with an inexplicably 

 good year, even the best years are 

 nothing like the old days. The highest 

 annual landings for river herring since 

 1887 came in 1969, with a haul of just 

 under 20 million pounds. By 1990, the 

 total landing was only 1.1 million pounds. 

 For shad, the peak landing of 9 million 

 pounds in 1897 has been replaced by annual 

 catches of less than 400,000 pounds. 



8 SPRING 2000 



