EASTHAM, Mass., — May 4, 2014 — In the state's four largest herring runs, including the Monument River on the Cape Cod Canal in Bourne, the numbers of fish have been increasing each year over the past three or four years to the point where the state is considering how they might allow some harvesting of river herring at those runs while still enforcing a harvest moratorium elsewhere that has been in effect since 2006. Additionally, herring sizes are up slightly as is the number of older fish, meaning the stock is healthier and living longer.
Bill Allan leaned against a chain-link fence and peered into the rushing water below.
He held a length of string connected to a thermometer that was obscured by the clouds of champagne bubbles from water spilling out of Bridge Pond, sliding over a thick wooden gate and collapsing into the stream below.
Off in a corner, huddled away from the force of the water shooting downstream, and the big bass that had accidentally slipped over the spillway and into the run, was a bluish gray ball of alewives gathering up energy for that last push into the pond where they could spawn.
Allan is one of 26 volunteer herring counters who each take a 10-minute shift for the 12 hours between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. every day at Cole Brook. Its recently restored herring run, including two new concrete culverts, was installed last year and is the newest addition to a network of 14 Cape streams and rivers overseen by the Association to Preserve Cape Cod.
Following protocol, Allan only counted the fish that made it up over the final gate and into Bridge Pond. Observer numbers would eventually get entered into a formula that computed an estimate of how many alewives reached the pond every day, along with environmental data like water temperature.
Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times