nh alewife / shad / pogie!

[cold waters]

I am virtually certain this is an alewife...... there was way to many of the damn things to be Shad.... either way, i found acres of the buggers bent the rod on dozens and released them.... it was good fun for the hour or so i went at it.

hmm i have a picture but something seems to be on the fritz..... Merrill

[Merrillizer™]

Testing photo attachment upload....

[Merrillizer™]

Photo attachment seems to be ok.

Brandon and I were surrounded by alewives too early this AM. I will post a report.

[cold waters]

looky looky

[cold waters]

so how do these buggers work for chunk bait??? thinking about going to get a 5 C.F. chest freezer and putting these up for bait for the summer.... i just cant handle the whole idea of a buck for a herring and it is probably going to get worse than that.

[Merrillizer™]

That's definitely not an alewife or herring. Looks like a shad to me from that angle.

American shad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


You can chunk those just like you would a Pogie. They are tough and cast well, I love drifting the heads out front over rockbeds.

[cold waters]

well if thats a shad we can say that they are in good standings...... there was thousands of them... and that is a gross understatment

[cold waters]

guess i should clear up the type of fish they are before i go filling a freezer in one day!!!

[Merrillizer™]

That's awesome! Thanks for reporting, it's good to hear someone saw some great numbers of them. People are already getting yelled at for keeping too many of them cuz they say the numbers are low. There is a 2 shad fish per day limit in NH and ME (any size)

I have only done minimal research on the NH shad stocks myself, but from what I have read, the stock is depressed

[Riverjim]

How many did you catch CW?

The reason I ask is that the shad and river herring/ Alewives show up at the same time and are often mixed together. I have caught them in my cast net while I am catching river herring. Although you might have seen tons of fish all around you , the chances are that alot of the comotion was from herring. Of course it is hard saying, not knowing, but my experience is that the numbers of shad are depressed. Also, size does matter. Shad are much larger when returning to spawn then are alewives which are usualy eight to twelve inches, with twelve inchers being few and far between. Also the forked tail of a shad is more prominent then with a River Herring

These link might help.
You will notice that the Merrimack has a half decent Shad run. In fact that is where New Hampshire gets the fish that they have been stocking into our rivers, but getting the population to grow has been a fight that is not being won yet. I hope the fish you are seeing will prove the biologists wrong.
I hope this helps.

Herring - NH Fish and wildlife


Central New England Fishery Resources Office: Anadramous Fish Returns Merrimack River

This one is quite long, but alot can be learned.
http://www.nhfishandwildlife.com/ass...ad06.PRI_1.doc