| The following column appeared in The River Reporter on April 23, 1998. |
By Bert S. Feldman
The Recusant Reporter
Thursday, April 23, 1998
Folks along the Upper Delaware River will soon receive a throng of regular tourists from the vicinity of Bermuda. Why anybody would leave Bermuda to come visit us, I don't know, but then, I am not a shad.
Starting about the end of winter, thousands upon thousands of these finny friends, members of the herring family, left their home in the mid-Atlantic and, driven by a force of nature that we don't quite understand, began to migrate to the headwaters of the Delaware and other Atlantic coastal rivers.
Perhaps not as spectacular as the migration of the Pacific salmon, the sheer mass of the shad is a sight worth seeing. I often wonder why our various chambers of commerce do not promote it more.
Somewhere around the first of May, scores of fishing enthusiasts will be wetting their shad darts in Upper Delaware waters. Shad are a middling-size fish, but I have read of some up around the 14-pound mark.
Once you have mastered the knack of deboning them, you will have yourself a tasty dish to delight your palate. And the roe is likewise delicious!
The migration of fish is truly amazing. They are able to return to the stream where they were spawned from distances of thousands of miles. Some of the small fry may linger in their place of hatching for as much as two years, but then they will still be able to find their way back to the oceanic neighborhood where they will find the others of their species.
My favorite fish story concerns an Indian who came every year to the banks of the Delaware and caught shad, which he then smoked and dried on a wooden frame. He had a small shanty where he slept at night. Also, in the shanty, he kept his blankets and sleeping bag.
One night while he was asleep, a fire broke out beneath the drying frame, and consumed everything.
The claims adjuster from the insurance company came and asked Lon what his losses were. The Indian grunted, "Me lose everything. Shad rack, me shack, and a bedding roll."
OK, I'll go quietly.
My thanks to those people who enlightened me of the fact that on Palm Sunday, having not moved my clock ahead, I would be an hour late, not an hour early.
My apologies for getting confused; I have a problem with most numerical matters. However, I do know that the 21st century doesn't start until after 12:00 midnight, January 1, 2001.
