The Founding Fish (26 page)
Authors: John McPhee
“Shad are following in the wake of salmon in consequence of American energy of destruction,” Green and R. Barnwell Roosevelt wrote in 1879. Green on his own was routing the problem with his little boxes. “The fish for cultivation in American waters, the fish which nature has given us preeminently as one of its best gifts to man is the shad,” he and Roosevelt declared, as Green's shadlings caused runs to burgeon and supply to outreach the highest demand. Restoring a diminished species, he was making it once again plentiful and cheap.
In the eighteen-nineties, Rand McNally published an anthology called “American Game Fishes,” by twenty authors, including the preëminent American sport-fishing writers of the nineteenth century: Thomas Chalmers, Frank Forester (whose real name was Henry William Herbert), and Thaddeus Norris (known in the fishing world as Uncle Thad). “American Game Fishes” dealt sequentially with a great many species but not with shad. Although
Forester, Chalmers, and Norris had all described casting for shad with fly rods, those were isolated virtuoso performances and did not bespeak a national recreation. Henry William Herbert was at least a century ahead of his time. In 1849, in “Frank Forester's Fish and Fishing of the United States and British Provinces of North America,” he said of American shad: “This delicious and well-known fish, which is by many persons esteemed the queen of all fishes on the table, has been, until very recently, regarded as one that could be taken only with the net, and therefore of no avail to the angler. It is, however, now clearly proved that ⦠American shad will take a large gaudy fly freely, and being a strong, powerful, and active fish, affords a great play to the sportsman ⦠The flesh of the shad is perhaps the most delicate of any existing fish; and, though it lacks the lusciousness, as well as the glutinous fin of the Turbot, it is preferred to that fish by many judicious epicures, notwithstanding the drawback occasioned by its innumerable and sharply-pointed bones.” So literate was Herbert in his fishing pieces that he occasionally broke into sustained runs of untranslated French. His Swiss-born friend Louis Agassiz, discoverer of continental glaciation, was also a celebrated paleoichthyologist, and he contributed fish sketches to Forester's research. Forester was an early craftsman in liminal advertising, e.g., “I can assure the fly-fisher that he will find much sport in fishing for the Shad ⦠with a powerful Trout-rod, a long line, and such flies as he will procure in perfection at Conroy's, in Fulton-street, New York.”
Forester, Chalmers, and Norris had all described casting for shad with fly rods, those were isolated virtuoso performances and did not bespeak a national recreation. Henry William Herbert was at least a century ahead of his time. In 1849, in “Frank Forester's Fish and Fishing of the United States and British Provinces of North America,” he said of American shad: “This delicious and well-known fish, which is by many persons esteemed the queen of all fishes on the table, has been, until very recently, regarded as one that could be taken only with the net, and therefore of no avail to the angler. It is, however, now clearly proved that ⦠American shad will take a large gaudy fly freely, and being a strong, powerful, and active fish, affords a great play to the sportsman ⦠The flesh of the shad is perhaps the most delicate of any existing fish; and, though it lacks the lusciousness, as well as the glutinous fin of the Turbot, it is preferred to that fish by many judicious epicures, notwithstanding the drawback occasioned by its innumerable and sharply-pointed bones.” So literate was Herbert in his fishing pieces that he occasionally broke into sustained runs of untranslated French. His Swiss-born friend Louis Agassiz, discoverer of continental glaciation, was also a celebrated paleoichthyologist, and he contributed fish sketches to Forester's research. Forester was an early craftsman in liminal advertising, e.g., “I can assure the fly-fisher that he will find much sport in fishing for the Shad ⦠with a powerful Trout-rod, a long line, and such flies as he will procure in perfection at Conroy's, in Fulton-street, New York.”
Conroy, it seems safe to say, did not grow rich on shad flies. Almost fifty years laterâin the eighteen-nineties-shad were still beyond the conversation of most sport fishermen, despite the magic spawnings of Seth Green and the replenishment of eastern rivers. State hatcheries had long since developed, and by 1896 commercial seiners were harvesting fifty million pounds of shadâ“far and away the Atlantic Coast's most valuable finfishery,” in the words of the historian Charles Hardy. So relevant was the shad to
the economy of Connecticut that Johnny Flynn's Market, in Hartford, sent its first shad each spring to the Old State House, and the governor had it for breakfast. The premier river, however, was thenâas it is nowâthe Delaware, which accounted for one-third of those fifty million pounds. Fresh Delaware shad were sold off carts in Chicago. The zoologist W K. Brooks, of Johns Hopkins, called shad “the most remarkable of domesticated animals, for it is the only one which man has yet learned to rear and to send out into the ocean in great flocks and herds to pasture upon its abundance, and to come back again, fat and nutritious, to the place from which it was sent out. From this point of view the maintenance of the shad fishery by man is one of the most notable triumphs of human intelligence over nature.” Or, as Hardy has amplified the thought, “shad ranged free in the great plains of the oceans just as cattle grazed freely on the great inland ocean of the Plains.”
the economy of Connecticut that Johnny Flynn's Market, in Hartford, sent its first shad each spring to the Old State House, and the governor had it for breakfast. The premier river, however, was thenâas it is nowâthe Delaware, which accounted for one-third of those fifty million pounds. Fresh Delaware shad were sold off carts in Chicago. The zoologist W K. Brooks, of Johns Hopkins, called shad “the most remarkable of domesticated animals, for it is the only one which man has yet learned to rear and to send out into the ocean in great flocks and herds to pasture upon its abundance, and to come back again, fat and nutritious, to the place from which it was sent out. From this point of view the maintenance of the shad fishery by man is one of the most notable triumphs of human intelligence over nature.” Or, as Hardy has amplified the thought, “shad ranged free in the great plains of the oceans just as cattle grazed freely on the great inland ocean of the Plains.”
Yet, as equity markets routinely demonstrate, there can be too much of a good thing. Steam winches were hauling in the fish. On railway spurs, freight trains were waiting to carry them to market. Seines were two miles long, three miles long. Charles Hardy calls this “a final cashing in on a once renewable resource,” and continues : “The shad renaissance ⦠lasted perhaps forty years. After a peak harvest of more than sixteen million pounds at the turn of the century, landings in the Delaware plunged to only three million pounds in 1905. A resurgence to seven million pounds in 1906 was then followed by another plunge. In 1916, fishermen took the last million pound haul out of the river.”
In the same year, in the “Transactions of the American Fisheries Society,” Charles Minor Blackford, M.D., of Staunton, Virginia, reported: “In the Chesapeake Bay, the nets extend out, in some cases, to a distance of twelve miles from shore, and the only chance that the fish have to get to their spawning grounds is to keep within the ship channels which are kept clear by the federal
authorities.” Blackford suggested that in addition to all their other talents shad would do well to study federal navigation laws.
authorities.” Blackford suggested that in addition to all their other talents shad would do well to study federal navigation laws.
By 1925, the drop in shad populations in eastern rivers had become so drastic that Herbert C. Hoover, Secretary of Commerce, called a conference to discuss the emergency. Two million pounds of Seth Green's transplanted
Alosa sapidissima,
he pointed out, were being shipped east annually from California and sold as “fresh Atlantic shad.”
Alosa sapidissima,
he pointed out, were being shipped east annually from California and sold as “fresh Atlantic shad.”
ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE
I
n stocking waders and cleated boots, I am standing in a clump of bushes that spend most of the year far out of water. Not to mention the trees. The water comes up to my waist. If I were to step a wee bit farther out, cops would pick up the body in Trenton. The river here is only one or two hundred feet wide, and the number of cubic feet per second going by is six times normal. If you like, you could call it a flood, but the Delaware gorge in the Pocono-Catskill plateau is so confined that the water is not pooling out all over the countryside but is concentrated in a silt-laden flume of what appears to be hurtling cement. All the sane people have long since quit and gone home. Stick around. There's a challenge present. The fish are in the river, where else? They're just as unhappy as you are. Out from the water's edge, they can't go much farther than you can.
n stocking waders and cleated boots, I am standing in a clump of bushes that spend most of the year far out of water. Not to mention the trees. The water comes up to my waist. If I were to step a wee bit farther out, cops would pick up the body in Trenton. The river here is only one or two hundred feet wide, and the number of cubic feet per second going by is six times normal. If you like, you could call it a flood, but the Delaware gorge in the Pocono-Catskill plateau is so confined that the water is not pooling out all over the countryside but is concentrated in a silt-laden flume of what appears to be hurtling cement. All the sane people have long since quit and gone home. Stick around. There's a challenge present. The fish are in the river, where else? They're just as unhappy as you are. Out from the water's edge, they can't go much farther than you can.
Toss into the river a twig or a leaf or anything else that floats. Watch it go. If there is some kind of eddy, it will find it. Cast a bright dart into the big current so that it swings into the seam of the eddy. Do not be discouraged by the fact that deer have been known to sleep where you are fishing. This situation is extremely marginal, and you will not have a banner day, but one fish caught under these conditions is worth sixteen in a low river with big schools. A guy in Hankins told me that high turbid water, within
reason, “can even be good for shad”âfrom the angler's point of view. They hit the darts more readily, he claimed, than they do in low, clear water. A local newspaper described fishermen using weighted flies for shad near the edge of the swollen river. There are things to be said for catching fish in a forest. The dart swings out of the brown-and-white turbulence into the haven shallows. Suddenly the line sticks fast to a five-pound two-ounce roe.
reason, “can even be good for shad”âfrom the angler's point of view. They hit the darts more readily, he claimed, than they do in low, clear water. A local newspaper described fishermen using weighted flies for shad near the edge of the swollen river. There are things to be said for catching fish in a forest. The dart swings out of the brown-and-white turbulence into the haven shallows. Suddenly the line sticks fast to a five-pound two-ounce roe.
May 22: Was out on a rock in the afternoon, the river down and clear. The event of the day was a weird, deceptive snag. It felt like river-bottom mononlamentâthe lost fishing line, mine and others', that all of us so often get hung up on. It's like a bungee with your hook in it. Snags of one kind and another are routine in shad fishing, because you generally fish along the bottom. I tugged at this one, and dragged it a little, hoping not to snap my rod. The burden at the far end kept comingâa slow, elastic dead weight. Then the line came up like a blade through the water and the surface of the river burst open. A roe shad the size of a blimp jumped and soared two feet in the air. Simultaneously, the dart came free. That huge roe shad had been sulking on the hook the way salmon do. Indisputably, she was the biggest shad anywhere in the river. I am off the mark, of course, in comparing her to a blimp. She was more like the Hindenburg. Beware. Nine snags will be snags, but the tenth will have a caudal fin.
An AWOL is a shad absent without leave. AWOLs in shad fishing are numerous and inevitable and deserve to be in the statistics. They are shad that hook up and later get awayâthe ten-second shad, the ten-minute shad. Solidly, the fish hits the lure; and completely it gets away. How it gets away is the nature of the AWOL.
Many are the result of very light hookings, and most hookings are very lightânicks in the front of the mouth. After a time, the hook pulls loose, and that is routine shad fishing. That is what it's like. Fish on the line are by no means halfway home. Most of all, the shad you hook but don't land are a part of your seasonâthe hooking being in some ways more significant than the netting. In one ten-year span, I hooked up with a little over a thousand shad, and lost two hundred and ninety-eight. Roughly one in three. Most that get away are no-fault AWOLs. For example, the planer AWOL. Far out on the line, the shad comes to the river surface lying on one side. This is no spent shad. It skitters like a surfboard on the top of the river. There is nothing you can do except watch in wonder. The planing sometimes sets the fish free, even more than tail-walking and aerial somersaults. Selected examples:
Many are the result of very light hookings, and most hookings are very lightânicks in the front of the mouth. After a time, the hook pulls loose, and that is routine shad fishing. That is what it's like. Fish on the line are by no means halfway home. Most of all, the shad you hook but don't land are a part of your seasonâthe hooking being in some ways more significant than the netting. In one ten-year span, I hooked up with a little over a thousand shad, and lost two hundred and ninety-eight. Roughly one in three. Most that get away are no-fault AWOLs. For example, the planer AWOL. Far out on the line, the shad comes to the river surface lying on one side. This is no spent shad. It skitters like a surfboard on the top of the river. There is nothing you can do except watch in wonder. The planing sometimes sets the fish free, even more than tail-walking and aerial somersaults. Selected examples:
May 7: Around four-thirty, I hooked a shad that was on for three or four minutes before it shed the hook, jumping, and the dart flew back past my ear.
May 13: Four AWOLsâone near the boat after twelve minutes. No mistakes.
May 25: Spectacularly, a buck shad does three consecutive somersaults, high above the water, remaining on the line. Now comes somersault four. He ejects the dart in midair.
Draped over the tip of the jaw, the hook may have penetratedâas the hook often doesâthe thin soft tissue that the anatomist Willy Bemis calls “the membrane of the maxillary recess.” After the hook has gradually widened the hole it makes in the membrane, the hook falls out.
June 10: She leaped, leaped again, tail-walked, all over the river. The line was high and taut and the dart securely tied when, after five or ten minutes, she was gone. She expanded the penetration. She got herself away.
When a shad goes AWOL, you often cannot tell if it's your fault. You may have put on too much pressure. You may have used too little pressure. You don't know. All you know is that the line is slack, the fish gone. The hookup may have been so tenuous that it had no chance of lasting. You don't know. It may have been adequate but you tugged too hard, assuming an even firmer connection. Some shad are so securely hooked that there is almost no way to lose them. Most are hooked in such a way that the dart easily falls out when the line goes limp, whether the fish is in the water or in the net. You must assume that any fish is scarcely hooked. Shad fishing is a shrewd trade-off between handling and manhandling. Too muchâshe's gone. Too littleâshe's gone. That is one of the many reasons why you squirt adrenaline when they tail-walk or do somersault leaps. When they go AWOL, a choice is yours: to blame, or not to blame, yourself.
There is a good deal less latitude when the cause is impatience or bumblingâfaults of the failed fisherman. Me, for example. Such as the time I jabbed that incoming shad in the head with the net, dislodged the dart, and the fish vanished. Among AWOLs of embarrassment, humiliation, and shame, the lowest form is the unravelled AWOL. The line unties itself at the hook. This is even worse than the horse AWOLâa fish lost to impatience by being yanked in too fast. Little buck shad invite the horse AWOL. They are male and they lack character, dimension, determination, and eggs. For ever and eternity they are second class. They are not roe shad. So you see them in the water flipping out on the end of your line, and your tolerance contracts. You yank them up hard and they fly away. You are a bad fisherman.
May 17: Two of my AWOLs were bucks that I lost beside the canoe because I muscled them too hard. I probably did that because I could see that they were bucks and was showing disdain for their sex and size. Little white males. I denigrated them because they weren't females with roe. They deservedly escaped. I should be fined for contempt of shad.
May 31: One of my AWOLs was a horsed buck. I was so irritated by him that I lost him-annoyed that he had the temerity to get on the line and flip and flap and wash and leap and execute complete somersaults while the females were patiently waiting their turn.
Twice in one week in my chocolate canoe I pulled a buck shad straight up out of the water, and then in midair it shed the hook, and thenâfree as a basketballâit dropped into the net in my hand. Those two fish deserved something better than a slam dunk.
May 12: Two AWOLsâone from another unravelled knot. I caught five or six fish on the dart and did not trouble to retie it; I got what I deserved.
May 13: Two got away at the net, including a big roe. The dart fell out of her mouth as I leaned toward her and forgetfully released tension. Lefty, you've done it again.
May 14: This would be humiliating if it weren't inconceivable. Four fish were lost after long battles because the knots came untied! Knots are not one of my failings, or used not to be. Five other fish simply got away. Three hours, nine AWOLs, one shad.
May 15: After thinking about my lost fish for twenty-four hours, I remembered that I was using old line. Dried line is difficult to knot snugly and may slip. I bought new line.
May 23: At the end of an hour and a half, the last of several fish simply leaves as the dart untiesâa complete-fault AWOL. Careless. Inspect the darts, jackass. Retie the darts.
May 25: In the net, the fish had nothing in its mouth, the dart was not tied to the line. The dart was hanging in the mesh of the net. Evidently, the knot untied in the moment that I netted the fish.
Things have become so bad that I have been to see a fishing shrink. This was after a record loss of nine out of ten hooked shad. I had of course consulted Merritt but I wanted a second opinion. The slippage in old dry line was surely the problem, the doctor said. Yes, I told him, but most fish I lose, I lose in other ways. He said that I probably hold the rod high and straight up and keep the line taut like everybody else, right? Right. That's what they all do. Whenever you see a shad fisherman with a shad on the line, the rod is high and he is working in a plane straight in front of his nose. That's not the way to deal with a fish. The fish is always upright and knows where he is and what he's doing. You want to control, confuse, and direct the fish. Hold the rod horizontally off your left hip. Firmly, not too firmly, direct the fish that way. Make it move that way. After a time, swing the rod over until it projects horizontally to the right. Lead the fish that way. Now lead him the first way. Now the other way. He will become so confused he will turn on his side and take orders.
I also told the shrink I had particular trouble with freshly
hooked fish that came near the canoe and were too active to control at close quarters. A just-hooked fish that gets close to the fisherman has “freedom” written on every scale.
hooked fish that came near the canoe and were too active to control at close quarters. A just-hooked fish that gets close to the fisherman has “freedom” written on every scale.
Do you know how to make a fish turn over on its back? he asked.
Not without shooting it, I said.
He was holding a rod in his hand. You do this, he said. And he plunged the rod straight down. You plunge the rod into the river as if you were a matador killing a bull.
Returning to the river, I hooked into only eight shad, but I landed them all, and each time I held the rod on the horizontal. I drew them to the left, then drew them to the right, switching from the one side to the other every half-minute or so, and more frequently as the fish came closer to the canoe. In the end, I was switching from left to right every five or ten seconds. The shad went schizophrenic. Even when they were fresh and only seconds on the line, they got so addled that they turned on their sides and frog-kicked. They were so cross-eyed they were not alarmed by the net. In close proximity to the canoe, one shad was a good deal more vigorous than the others had been. I plunged the rod tip straight down into the river. The shad turned belly up and backstroked into the net.
On a June morning, dawn to sunrise, Erwin Dietzâas usualâwas catching shad as if he were eating potato chips. After I pulled anchor and got ready to depart, I paddled over to have a look at his equipment. He was using two lures: a dart, larger than a quarter ounce, andâthree feet farther down the lineâa flutter spoon. He said, “If you hit the daily double, it's a bitch.”
All that rigging depresses me. I refuse to fish that way. In the words of the master, Merritt: “Don't do it if you don't like it. You fish on your own terms.” Merritt uses two flies sometimes: a dropper andâa couple of feet farther outâa point fly. In Erwin's rig, the dart is the dropper and the flutter spoon is analogous to the
point fly. Shad fishermen call it the stretcher. Maybe, after all, I should try doubling up just once. I tie on two darts, a couple of feet apart. On the second cast, two shad strike simultaneously. In the comedy that follows, one goes AWOL. After catching another fish or two on the double rig, I revert to the single mode. As Shane said to Joey: “One gun is all you need, if you can use it.”
point fly. Shad fishermen call it the stretcher. Maybe, after all, I should try doubling up just once. I tie on two darts, a couple of feet apart. On the second cast, two shad strike simultaneously. In the comedy that follows, one goes AWOL. After catching another fish or two on the double rig, I revert to the single mode. As Shane said to Joey: “One gun is all you need, if you can use it.”
Two weeks later, with a small dart doing nothing on my fly line, my resolve weakens again, and I tack on a flutter-spoon stretcher. Fish hits, nice weight, slowly comes toward the canoe. Fish digs in, becomes heavier and tougher, dives. Line goes out against the drag. Ten minutes. No progress. Twenty. Every time I move the fish, I lose the ground I have gained. Thirty minutes. Two fishermen on the New York bank have stopped to watch. I cannot bring the fish upriver. Thirty-three minutes. I am saying to myself, “This is not going to end well. Before long I am going to feel the weight go off the line.” I can see a fish at the surface, evidently exhausted, but the pull is too hard to shorten line. Something is going to break. Therefore, I reach around with one hand and weigh the anchor enough to get it off the bottom, and step on the rope to keep the anchor from dropping. The canoe drifts downriver, while I reel toward the fish. There's a roe shad on the shad dart. I lift it into the canoe. The line to the flutter spoon is still taut. What to do? I pull it in by hand, and lift into the boat a second big roe shad. Two on one cast. Thirty-four minutes. It's a bitch when you hit the daily double.
I
n the near darkness of an early morning, a towering mist was moving south across the surface of the water. Wading, I was spin casting and catching fish. After a time, the dawning sun made shafts in the mist, gilding the line when it was in the air, and shining on the dart as it fell to the river. The dart was a
-ounce chartreuse with a dark-green head, and for some reason I didn't lose it.
I lose at least a hundred darts a year to bottom snags; it's just routine. This dart had a charmed existence. In late afternoon, I anchored the canoe high in a New York eddy, and resumed catching fish with the same chartreuse dart. From time to time, I ran my fingers over the monofilament and felt so much abrasion made by fish dragging the line over rocks that I snipped the dart away, removed the weakened line, and tied the dart back on. As dusk settled down, I became anxious to preserve and retire this amazing dart. I cast it gingerly into the middle of the channel, jigged it lightly along, retrieved it early, but kept on catching shad. For the day, six roes, eleven bucks, and three AWOLsâtwenty shad on a single dart. It's one that I keep at home, mounted on a small cedar shake.
n the near darkness of an early morning, a towering mist was moving south across the surface of the water. Wading, I was spin casting and catching fish. After a time, the dawning sun made shafts in the mist, gilding the line when it was in the air, and shining on the dart as it fell to the river. The dart was a
-ounce chartreuse with a dark-green head, and for some reason I didn't lose it.I lose at least a hundred darts a year to bottom snags; it's just routine. This dart had a charmed existence. In late afternoon, I anchored the canoe high in a New York eddy, and resumed catching fish with the same chartreuse dart. From time to time, I ran my fingers over the monofilament and felt so much abrasion made by fish dragging the line over rocks that I snipped the dart away, removed the weakened line, and tied the dart back on. As dusk settled down, I became anxious to preserve and retire this amazing dart. I cast it gingerly into the middle of the channel, jigged it lightly along, retrieved it early, but kept on catching shad. For the day, six roes, eleven bucks, and three AWOLsâtwenty shad on a single dart. It's one that I keep at home, mounted on a small cedar shake.
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