Shad making happy return

By DAVE SHERWOOD

Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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	Staff Photo by Dave Sherwood enlarge BACK IN THE KENNEBEC: Since the removal of Edwards Dam in 1999, American shad numbers are rising in the Kennebec River. Shad are an anadramous fish; they spend much of their adult lives at sea, then return to freshwater rivers to spawn. This shad was caught and tagged by biologists in Waterville.

WATERVILLE -- Jim Thibodeau pointed the bow of his aluminum canoe north from the boat launch near the Carter Memorial Bridge.

He was going shad fishing, as he does almost every evening in July.

His canoe slid upcurrent, propelled by a small motor. Below, gin-clear water rushed over boulders and fine gravel. Patches of grass shuddered in the current.

In the distance, a fish slapped the water.

A good sign.

"We might not catch any, you know," warned Thibodeau, of Waterville, on the phone earlier that day.

True enough. Every fisherman knows that catching a fish is never a guarantee.

"But you can't catch them at home either," he said.

THESHADRETURN

Before 1999, you couldn't catch them at all. There were no shad in Waterville. Or any other sea-run fish species.

All of the prime habitat between Augusta and Waterville -- 17 miles of clean, clear water and abundant feed -- was devoid of native fish, but for introduced species like smallmouth bass and brown trout.

Shad, like Atlantic salmon, stripers, alewives, and sturgeon, live much of their adult life at sea, but migrate to rivers like the Kennebec to spawn.

In 1837, Edwards Dam was built in Augusta and the fish runs ended.

In 1999, after years of public debate, Edwards Dam fell. Fish that had been bumping their noses against concrete for 160 years could once again access a portion of their historical spawning habitat.

In order to augment what was left of the natural runs, the Department of Marine Resources began stocking juvenile shad -- fry of less than an inch in length, said Gail Wippelhauser, a biologist with the Department of Marine Resources.

"They look like threads with eyes," she said.

Since 1999, more than 23.2 million shad fry have been stocked, said Wippelhauser. She says that only one of every 400 shad is expected to survive, but that still means a respectable run for the river.

Their long absence, however, has left a void among fishermen. No one seems to know how to catch them.

"It takes patience, I know that," said Thibodeau.

Since the dam was removed, his catch totals have gradually risen. Thibodeau, 62, is long retired from the Merchant Marine, and has plenty of time to fish.

And lots of patience. Last year he landed 30.

"But I lost a whole lot more than that," he said.

Shad are notoriously hard fighters. One of the herring family, they resemble miniature tarpon, a fish found in Florida which is renowned for its valiant leaps and tireless fight. Their bodies resemble elongated pancakes: wide in the middle, but narrow along their length. When they fight in rivers, they turn sideways, using the current and their wide bodies to their advantage. They also jump, thrashing the surface when first hooked.

On Wednesday, six other anglers joined Thibodeau on the banks of the river in Winslow, casting flies for shad.

"Their mouths are small and paper thin," said Thibodeau. "This is poor man's Atlantic salmon fishing -- the fish of a thousand casts."

According to Wippelhauser, shad that return to the river to spawn typically don't feed. In other traditional shad fishing rivers, like the Connecticut River in Massachussets, and the Delaware in Pennsylvania, lures are simple affairs, brightly colored and meant to anger fish into striking.

But things are different on the Kennebec.

Fishermen like Thibodeau have caught them on all kinds of odd lures -- from tiny caddis flies that hatch like mosquitos from the water's surface to lures that mimic crayfish or eels.

Wippelhauser wonders if perhaps the shad Thibodeau and others are catching have already finished spawning, and just remain in the river, rather than returning directly to sea as they do in most river systems.

"Maybe there's enough feed in the river to hold them here," she said.

"Nobody knows anything about it yet. These fish really move around a lot," said Thibideau.

MUCH MORE TO LEARN

Though he's likely caught as many or more than anyone else on the river, Thibodeau is always learning, asking questions and observing.

Biologists are doing the same.

For the past two years, they've set gill nets in likely locations in Ticonic Bay, hoping to capture spawning shad and begin to estimate their populations on the river.

This year, they caught 50. All were imbedded with tags.

Most received pit tags, simple tags that allow biologists to identify the fish, should they be caught again.

The remaining fish -- 10 total -- were implanted with radio tags. Biologists can monitor these fish with tracking antennas from the river banks and bridges. So far, biologists have been able to locate only a small number of them.

"Some of them stay in the area, but a lot of them don't. We found one just below the Memorial Bridge, and some in Ticonic Bay, and we thought we heard one in the Sebasticook...but it's not all of them," she said.

Nate Gray, who oversees the Anadramous Fish Restoration Program on the Kennebec for the Department, says they're learning, slowly.

"These fish are extraordinarily difficult to put a finger on. They're also extraordinarily difficult to catch in less concentrated numbers," he said.

The challenge and their mysterious habits are a part of what make them so exciting to catch.

The great fight doesn't hurt, either.

By 9 p.m, Thibodeau had worked his way up and down the river, from a gravel bar below the Hathaway Shirt Factory to the mouth of a feeder stream near the Carter Memorial Bridge.

Over the course of the evening, he tried trolling, casting a crayfish fly and even tossing a traditional shad dart fly.

All to no avail -- just a few small stripers and a smallmouth bass to show for his effort.

As the sun set over the Waterville side of the river, an angler -- Dave Moran, of South China, hooked a shad on the Winslow side. His line sparkled in the last rays of sunlight.

The fish took a long run south -- almost 100 yards from where he stood. His reel whined, his rod bent over double and his line stretched in a long, yellow arc across the water.

Moran took off running down the river, splashing water as he chased the fish along the slippery bank and mossy boulders.

In a few minutes, he landed it above a riffle of fastwater -- a dime-bright, 17-inch American shad.

He walked back upriver, beaming.

"I remember losing those two fish the other night and I said 'I'm not losing this one tonight!' Even if I have to chase him to Augusta," Moran said.

Someday, biologists hope to see as many as 700,000 adult shad spawning in the Kennebec -- a run comparable to that of famed shad rivers like the Delaware and the Connecticut.

For now, though, anglers like Thibodeau and Moran content themselves with just a few each season.

Dave Sherwood 621-5648

dsherwood@centralmaine.com