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[Rodney]

Water clarity has gradually degraded in the past week, most likely due to the fluctuation of temperature that we've been experiencing. Today I spent an hour walking around before sunset and found the water visibility to be around 0.5ft. The tide was at its lowest so visibility should be much better at high tide, but it wouldn't be as good as what I saw around two weeks ago. Nothing were caught on the fly obviously, perhaps a spoon or spinner would still entice some fish on this weekend when the sun is exected to shine.

[yamadirt 426]

Thats too bad Rod. When I went out on that low tide a month ago the clarity was not very good either but still managed those brief battles on hardware. Must be the current going out making all that chocolate milk. Talk to a guy watching some fisherman the other day pull in a large herring? Is this possible there ?

[Rodney]

I checked the water clarity at high tide today, not very good at all. It's fine for spoons and spinners, but I don't think that I will bring the fly rod out again until it clears up, hopefully once more before freshet begins.

Big herring catches were reported further up river at No. 2 Road Pier a few weeks ago. I've seen herring caught before, but not bucketful. I didn't see any. Marco has when people brought them in to Berry's Bait and Tackle. They might also be American shads that were misidentified. Can't really say much more unless I see the fish. I saw groups of gulls working the surface today, so that maybe a school of them milling around.

[yamadirt 426]

Cool. Thanks Rod !

[Britguy]

I flew in from Portland yesterday and man was there some murky water comming out of the river
I am off Friday so i will take a run out your way Rod and try my luck with the hard ware

[Rodney]

Sounds good. Bring some roe down and float it just in case too. It may work much better with this poor water clarity.

[Steelhead King]

The people are catching herring for sure.. they are catching them on the new pier by no.1 road.  I went down to the pier the other day for about 20 min, saw about dozen or so caught by couple fisherman.

[mykisscrazy]

Again from the Beach Seining we did in the Fraser to look at Species composition and Biomass. In the April sets in the south and North Arm we did find good numbers of Herring....but then we had a grad student from the Stated and he swore up and down they were Shad..Anyways we took a few samples back and they all were shad. Never very big - 8 to 12 cm. So my guess is you are seeing shad and not Herring

[Rodney]

Again from the Beach Seining we did in the Fraser to look at Species composition and Biomass. In the April sets in the south and North Arm we did find good numbers of Herring....but then we had a grad student from the Stated and he swore up and down they were Shad..Anyways we took a few samples back and they all were shad. Never very big - 8 to 12 cm. So my guess is you are seeing shad and not Herring

Interesting with the small body size in your seined samples, that's probably why they were mistakened as pacific herring (not that pacific herring do not grow bigger, they can in fact reach much bigger size as most know). Pacific shad's maximum length is over 2ft long. The two species look very similar and can easily be mixed up with one glance. The small differences include dorsal and anal soft ray counts. I think the most distinct difference is the row of spots across the lateral line found on American shad, but not on Pacific herring.

Both have very different life histories that may suggest their presence or absence in the Fraser River. American shads spawnin rivers, while Pacific herring spawn on kelp. There are no reasons for pacific herring to be in the Tidal Fraser River, especially right now when spawning are taking place in kelp forests (see commercial herring fishery that took place this past week on ECVI).

On the other hand, it is hard to explain why american shad are already in the Tidal Fraser River. They typically spawn in spring/early summer, which explains why they were showing up in April during the seine sampling. In the winter months they tend to stay in deeper water.

This is an introduced species by the way. Not a newly introduced species, but one that was transplanted to the West Coast over a century ago. Also known as Atlantic shad, their natural distribution is the Atlantic coast of North America.

I've by-caught them several times in Steveston.



Not exactly a great fighter at this size, but I can imagine why they are targeted when they reach this size:

http://globalflyfisher.com/pix/display.php?code=30654d8fe8bd8&p=

[mykisscrazy]

I have seen larger shad caught in the Fraser River Gill net fishery in Aug - 35 to 45 cm. Hard to say how many there really are. Never have seen or heard them caught above Mission. Has anyone out there caught shad in the Fraser above Mission?
It would be great to find a spawning location. But my guess is that the Lower Fraser is the"nursery area" for them and the ones we caught in the Spring (April) were a year old and about to head out to sea.
My other guess is that the Lower Pitt and it's associated sloughs would be a good spawning location

[mykisscrazy]

Annotated Checklist of the
Introduced Species of Freshwater Fish of British Columbia (2008)
by Don McPhail

Alosa sapidissima – The American shad. This eastern North American species is
anadromous (it breeds in fresh water but lives most of its life in the sea). It was
introduced into San Francisco Bay in the late 1800s and spread rapidly in the North
Pacific. Although shad occasionally enter the Fraser River (as far upstream as Hope),
they have never become established in B.C.. They are not necessarily a warm-water
species, they do better at warmer temperatures than salmonines. Consequently, if shad do
establish themselves in the Fraser River, it may signal that something is seriously wrong
with the river. Their history in the Columbia system suggests that once they become
established, they can adapt to new conditions and become very numerous over a
relatively short time (about 50 years). What millions of new planktivores would do to the
ecological balance in the Strait of Georgia is hard to predict, but it probably would not be
good.

[Rodney]

I guess it's hard to say if these spontaneous encounters are indication of a permanently established population that utilize the Fraser River as spawning ground. We will know in a few decades from now. If we do end up with a cyclic spawning pattern of American shad in the Fraser River, then it'd probably be safe to say that a latitudinal climatic change is happening. The river will remain clear because of the absence of freshet and I'll be sight fishing for bonefish in 2058, in a wheel chair.

[magwart]

shad have been in the river for  at least  40 or 50 years.ive seen them in gillnets for 25. there are also herring in the lower fraser i think they come in  on the flood tide to feed we used to get them in eulochen  nets