FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: 



Renee Shannon joins Grifton locals for an 

 authentic fish fry at the Country Store. 

 Workers unload fish from the conveyor 

 belt at Herbert Byrum's fish house. 

 Fried herring at the Cypress Grill is a 

 springtime tradition. 



also show that the number of recruits — 

 fish that reach sexual maturity and return 

 — is also very low. 



Each year, the DMF samples the 

 river herring harvest to assess the overall 

 stock. Most of the herring harvested are 

 3 to 5 years old — usually first-time 

 spawners — suggesting that the older 

 ones have been fished out. Younger fish 

 are still in the ocean, maturing before 

 they spawn for the first time. "We want 

 to see a wide span of age classes 

 represented in a harvest," Winslow says. 

 "For the last 10 years, the majority of the 

 harvest is from one- to three-year 

 classes." In the 1970s, up to eight-year 

 classes were represented. 



In February, the Marine Fisheries 

 Commission adopted a Fishery Manage- 

 ment Plan for river herring. The plan 

 limits the commercial herring fishery to 

 300,000 pounds per year. That total 

 allowable catch is divided into three 

 portions: 200,000 pounds for the pound- 

 net fishery on the Chowan; 67,000 

 pounds for gill nets in the Albemarle 

 Sound herring management area; and 

 33,000 pounds that the DMF director can 

 assign. With the new limits, the division 

 expects it will take 14 to 24 years for the 

 river herring fishery to recover. 



The commission also instituted a 

 new cap or daily creel limit of 25 river 

 herring for recreational anglers. 



The final herring management plan 

 vote came after criticism of an earlier 



proposal that would have limited river 

 herring to a 100,000-pound bycatch 

 fishery. Under that plan, herring would 

 only be harvested incidentally, as a 

 limited "bycatch" when fishing for other 

 species. 



By rum was among a group of 

 fishers who thought the bycatch proposal 

 would result in wasted fish. "If it's a 25 

 percent bycatch, you'll have to catch 100 

 pounds of white perch and catfish before 

 you can take in 25 pounds of herring." 

 Since a pound net holds 5,000 pounds of 

 fish, if the rest of the fish are herring, 

 they'll have to be thrown back. And 

 herring just aren't the same after being 

 squeezed in a tight net with a lot of other 

 fish. "That's 4,875 pounds of herring that 

 will die and get thrown away," Byrum 

 says. "That's stupid. Herring is a fragile 

 fish. If you bunch it up, it'll die." 



The 300,000-pound limit was 

 approved after the Marine Fisheries 

 Commission again heard from the co- 

 chairs of an advisory panel for the river 

 herring management plan. The panel had 

 recommended a total catch of 450,000 

 pounds. Jerry Schill, president of the 

 North Carolina Fisheries Association, 

 says he was pleased that advisors had a 

 chance to present their proposal again. 



There may be no simple solutions 

 for the recovery of these fisheries. Shad 

 and river herring are more than fine- 

 tasting, silvery fish that swim up North 

 Carolina's rivers every spring, pulled by 



forces we neither see nor feel. For 

 generations of hard-working citizens — 

 often the state's poorest and most 

 invisible people — they have been gifts 

 from the river, a seemingly endless 

 bounty that created jobs, traditions, and 

 plenty in the midst of want. 



If the numbers of shad and herring 

 continue to dwindle, a part of North 

 Carolina heritage vanishes with them: 

 three centuries of town reunions on the 

 riverbank, baked shad at Easter, fresh 

 herring at the Cypress Grill, 5,000 

 pounds of fragile fish flashing in a net. 



As Byrum says, it's beautiful 

 fishing. □ 



editor's Note: 



Much of the historical information for 

 this story is drawn from the master's thesis 

 of Charles L. Heath Jr., "A Cultural 

 History of River Herring and Shad 

 Fisheries in Eastern North Carolina: The 

 Prehistoric Period through the Twentieth 

 Century, " prepared in 1997 for the East 

 Carolina University anthropology 

 department. 



fish Festivals: 



The Grifton Shad Festival will be held 

 April 8-9. Call Janet Hasely at 252/524- 

 4356 for more information. The Jatnesville 

 Herring Festival will be held April 24. For 

 information, call 252/792-5006. 



COASTWATCH 13 



