It's been going on for two decades. Some 30,000 fans flocked to Lambertville last year to laud the shad, slurp shad chowder, grill shad fillets and regale in shad roe. It is as much a harbinger of spring as March Madness. The annual fish frenzy begins in March, when schools of shad leave their saltwater habitat off the shores of Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas to make their way north into fresh water estuaries like the Delaware River, so females loaded with roe can spawn. May. Shad facts Shad Facts Native Americans used shad as fertilizer.
Shad is the largest member of the herring family.
The uncooked fish meat should be pink and bright with a dark red fat line. Others celebrate shad more as a seasonal tradition, like colored Easter eggs and Passover tzimmes. And then there's the issue of bones. Unlike conventional fish that have one set of bones, shad, a member of the herring family, has two to three sets of bones, making filleting it a challenge, to say the least. Shad roe, a type of caviar, is cooked in sacs removed from the connective tissue of the fish.