The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-12-27
THE TooTHsoME sHAD.
Is the Most Popular of All the Food
Fishes of America.

OF all the food fishes of America
shad may be regarded as the most
popular; it appears on the table of the
wealthy epicure as a delicacy, while to
the unpampered palate of the work.
ingman it forms a substantial and
nourishing dish.
In the golden days of their former
abundance no shad were so highly
priced as those captured in the upper
reaches of the Susquehanna, whose
clear, running waters only the better
conditioned could attain, and which in
their long journey against a swiftly
owing stream were supposed to acquire
a flavor peculiarly their own.
In the van of the ascending shoal
were massed the largest and the
strongest fish, the steady, even APP
proach of their densely compacted
ranks being betrayed by a nearing
ripple, visible at a distance of several
hundred yards. Battling with a mad
ly contending current sometimes halt
ing, sometimes retreating, and again
advancing as the waters became
warmer, many of the weaker and
smaller fell out of the serried ranks.
| but the larger and stronger pushed on
| to the difficult goal.
The upper valley, apparently the
bOurn of their long and tOtlSOme Jour-
| ney, was generally attained toward the
close of March, or, if the season was
backward, early in April. In this slow
northern movement the males pre-
ceded the roe burdened fish, and sue
cessive shoals of each prolonged the
fishery for several weeks. The best
shad caught at this time and place
weighed eight or nine pounds, and in
exceptional instances reached weight
of eleven or twelve pounds.
1t is well known that the Indians who
once populated the Atlantic seaboard
along Ies' the banks ni of the susquehanna, Del
aware and Hudson rivers for the annual
a1C vie ted he a ffsrC Df q
land rivers, and the early settlers in Mas
sachusetts found immense numbers of
Shad in the various streams of that col
ony, and, following the Indian practice
were accustomed to use their surplus
After the desolation of the lovely wy
oming valley by the memorable Indian
less were the objects of much solicitude.
and among the thoughtful administrations
came known as the widows haul. The
first Sunday after the season began the
entire catch or the seine, whether much
or little, was set apart for their exclusive
benefit, and this generous practice was
continued for more than a decade after
the massacre: In 1850 one of these widows
hauls, near Wilkesbarre, resulted in an
authenticated total catch of ten thousand
shad, and even larger draughts were re-
ported from Nanticoke and Bloomsbury.
The damming of the Susquehanna, con-
utterly extinguished these magnificent
fisheries. During the last ten years of the
nineteenth century, however the Iabors of
renewed the former abundance of the
catch. The lavish generosity of nature
has everywhere been abused and the finny
treasures of the Della ware have been
wasted with the same reckless prodigality
and unconcern for the future that else
where marked the fishery. But in 1891
the joint action of commissions of New
York and Pennsylvania in establishing an
effective fishway at Lackawaxen dam, on
the Delaware opened an additional hum
bred miles of that splendid stream to the
shad and after an absence of 20 years
they reappeared at Townsville, N. y, up
on the Popacton branch, and at Deposit
upon the west branch, having at their
furthest reached a point three hundred
miles from the sea.-Philadelphia Record