Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-16
HOME RUSH OF SHAO
Finny King Now Returning
From Ocean to River.
SWEEPING UP COAST
MANY THOUSANDS MATCHED BY
THE FISH COMMISSION.
Enormous Consumption in Washing
ton-When They Appear in Poto-
mac-WiIl Rise to the Fly.

These warm days of early spring start
the sap in the fisherman as well as in the
trees. He knows the time is near at hand
when perch, shad, herring and the willy
black bass will be running, and when the
restraints of law Will he removed from his
favorite sport. The disciple of Walton is
getting pole, lines and flies ready for the
opening of the season, and dreaming of
mornings and afternoons in well-known
haunts upon the river where he has lured
many a fish to it's DEATH
If he be a sportsman with view ex-
tending beyond local waters, he knows the
salmon will soon be leaping cascades and
breasting swift currents in northern rivers
to revisit the place of it's birth. He knows
that splendid shad will be on their tireless
run up the Mississippi and its tributaries
into southern rivers, and later farther
north to the coast of Maine He knows
tarpon fishing is at it's height in the waters
of the gulf and in California, and that a
month or so hence the speckled beauties of
the trout streams will be lying IN every
deep hole of the mountain brooks. The
true fisherman has dreams these days which
are not of money getting, social pleasures
or scenes of distant araVel. His spring
fever beckons to the cool bosom of the
lake and river and the shady pool where
the game fish lies waiting to grab his
hidden hook
Home Rush of the Shad.
One of the best and most savory fish of
the Potomac is the shad To many this
fish is known only as rich table deli
cacy of spring and early summer, and many
have never learned perhaps the peculiar
habits of the shad. In February the shad
begins to appear in the waters of Florida,
and about the mouths of the gulf rivers.
l'he roe shad precedes the melt by few
days. In the southern streams the fish are
smaller than in the rivers farther north.
They reach their highest perfection as TO
size and quality In South Carolina, Chesa-
peake bay. the Delaware and Hudson rivers.
Two weeks after they begin to swarm in
the waters of the gulf they appear on the
Carolina coast. Still two weeks later the
vanguard is in the Chesapeake and tributary
streams and so the tribe sweeps up the
Atlantic coast, each fish by a strange in
stinct going back to the place where It was
born three years before, and annually af-
terward during its lifetime The purpose
of this annual migration from salt to fresh
water is the laying of spawn by the roe
shad the melt or male fish joining as a
sort of bodyguard of the expedition.
The shad, like the herring runs in schools
numbering many hundreds or thousands,
according to the size of the stream and
the time of the year. In the Potomac they
appear in March, the first run being smaller
than those following. There are usually
two of these runs in April The grand
home rush of the shad, however, comes in
may, and the schools follow closely one
upon another that through that month
and well into June there is almost a con-
tnuous stream of them going to or COM
ing from the mouth of the river. The fish
seem TO stay in the Potomac about two
weeks, after which they return to salt wa
ter again and disappear until the follow
ing year Stragglers are found throughout
the summer until early fall In fact shad
are found in more or less quantity in the
Potomac from March TO September.
Artificial Matching
The spawn of the shad is deposited in
enormous quantity by the female fish, but
owing TO various causes. such as the naviga-
ton of the rivers and the rapacity of other
species, comparatively few of the young
are Matched and come TO maturity. There
are many enemies of the young fry. and they
die or are devoured by thousands in the
early period of their life. Added to this
the catching of enormous quantities of roe
shad for the sake of the roe, before they
have had opportunity to spawn. interferes