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03/22/2017 09:00 AMAmerica has its Founding Fathers, but Connecticut River Museum has a story to tell about another kind of founder: Connecticut’s founding fish, the shad. Biologically, the shad is the largest member of the herring family. Symbolically, it is Connecticut’s state fish. Historically, it has been a source of local income, nutrition, and legend since pre-Colonial times.
The new exhibit at the museum in Essex shows the relationship between the shad, the river, and the local population that has existed since the time when native Americans made traps of plants, trees, and vines to ensnare the shad as they swam upstream to spawn.
Shad swim upstream to spawn? Wait, isn’t that supposed to be salmon? Yes, but shad do the same thing. The fish, ranging in weight as adults from three to eight pounds, are born in freshwater, but spend most of their lives in the salty Atlantic before returning to their freshwater birthplace to renew the cycle of life.
The museum exhibit shows scenes and artifacts of more than 200 years of shad fishing on the Connecticut River, starting with nets once used to trap the fish in what were called fish pounds. The nets on display were rescued from a barn at Hamburg Cove in Lyme and donated to the museum by a fisheries expert. They are now ragged and have obvious holes, but that doesn’t detract from their importance, according to museum Executive Director Chris Dobbs.
“What makes these nets valuable is that we know their provenance; we know their story and where they came from,” he said.
In the 19th century, according to museum curator Amy Trout, families knitted long lengths of nets, which had to be constantly repaired, to trap the shad. The present exhibit includes memorabilia from a factory in Moodus that up until the mid-20th century made nylon thread used to fashion nets that didn’t tear or rot as readily. Most commercial shad fishing today is done with nets with larger openings that allow fish to partially swim through, but trap their gills in the webbing.
Many shad fisherman, particularly in the 19th century, did other jobs and fished only during the spring run. There is a display of the meticulous notebooks some used to record their catch, including the weight of each fish and whether it was a male or female. The females, with their roe long considered a delicacy, brought higher market prices.
The center of the exhibit hall features a locally built shad boat, made by Earl Brockway of Old Saybrook. After World War II, according to Dobbs, Brockway began making shad boats out of plywood for the next two decades. Many of those Brockway skiffs, Dobbs added, are still being used today.
Once caught, the shad, presented its most intricate problem: how to get rid of its large number bones. Filleting the fish was a skill often passed down through families. During the spring run, skilled boners staffed shad shacks along the river, like the Spencer shack in Haddam pictured in the museum display. They boned fish for customers or for shipping to market.
Shad populations in the Connecticut, according to the state Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP), wax and wane, but the shad run on the Connecticut has always been sufficient for spring fishing contests. Included in the present show is a varnished leather high hat from an early 19th century shad derby in which 7,800 of the fish were caught in one day. There is also a trophy case with material from the Windsor Shad Derby, which still takes place annually on the river. It includes not only a fishing contest, but also a beauty contest with an annual crowning of a Shad Derby Queen.
On Thursday, March 30, Steve Gephard, a supervising fisheries biologist at DEEP, will give a talk at the Connecticut River Museum on Connecticut River Shad.
The Connecticut River Museum’s connection with shad is renewed annually at the annual Rotary of Essex Shad Bake, which takes place annually on the museum grounds. This year the shad bake will be held on Saturday, June 3.
Connecticut’s Founding Fish
At the Connecticut River Museum, Steamboat Dock, 67 Main Street, Essex. Steve Gephard gives a lecture on Shad on Friday, March 30 at 5:30 p.m. The annual Rotary Shad Bake is on Saturday, June 3, from 3 to 6:30 p.m. For more information, call the museum at 860-767-8269 or visit www.ctrivermuseum.org.