The Alewife Report: May 4, 2015

It's not too late!  Go to their website to sign up!

Where there's a will, there's a way.  That's the take home from the Nequasset fish ladder in Woolwich. I'm signed up to count fish coming over the ladder for the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust, which manages the ladder along with a bunch of other organizations.  Just like last year, the first week of counting was cancelled due to cold water.  Alewives won't just climb ladders at any old temperature; they're quite specific about their preferences.  From years of research, we know these tenacious little fish are rather fond of 55 degrees, and we were expecting them to hold off until the water in Nequasset Lake got a little balmier than it is just now (it's around 50 now).

But some of our little friends decided they've waited long enough.  After reports last week that the fish were schooling at the mouth of the Kennebec, I took a look at the Google Doc we use to sign up (which it's not too late to do!) and lo and behold, the fish are starting to run.  Go fish, go!

So off Dory and I went, ready to count up a storm of alewives.  There were fish in the ladder, but sadly, none came over the final rung while I was counting.  But it was great to get out there and take a look at the renovated ladder.  Very fancy, and hopefully easier for the fish to get up (that's why we're counting, to see how well the renovation worked).

I'm expecting next week will see the ladder overrun with fish, but 'til then, here's what it looked like:

The ladder from above . . . 

. . .  and below.  Notice the gulls in both these photos, waiting for an easy meal!

Where they fish; the A-frame is for lifting nets of fish.

The net.

Fish scales on the sides of the box; probably decades' worth.

 This is what the fishing area looks like:

A fish in the fishing area, who knows how it got in since that area is closed off right now:

And here are the fish coming up the chutes:

Dory, being a Very Brave Science Dog:

Interested in alewives?  This is one of the GREAT migrations of the world -- right here in Maine. Get out there and check it out.  Here are 3 great places to see the run -- do it in the next few weeks!

World Fish Migration Day; Alewives Abound

Today is World Fish Migration Day.  A day to celebrate the spectacle of fish that connect the oceans and rivers of the world; to appreciate the many people who rely on these fish, and to work to ensure fish will run the rivers for generations to come.  So hooray for the alewife!  The salmon!  The eel!  Three cheers for the shad, the lamprey, the dourada, the giant catfish!  Hats off to fish ladders!  Hooray for all the organizations working for these fish.

Maine is blessed with more than its fair share of migrating fish.  We have your anadromous fish; the alewives I've grown so fond of, the Atlantic salmon (perched on the edge of extinction), the rainbow smelt, blueback herring (very difficult to tell apart from alewives), striped bass, Atlantic and shortnosed sturgeon (both in trouble), the Atlantic tomcod, the sea lamprey, and the American shad.  These fish all are born in freshwater, migrate to sea where they mature, then swim upstream to reproduce.  We've also got your catadromous fish, whose life cycle is just the opposite of anadromous fish -- they are born at sea, swim upstream and mature in fresh water, then swim downstream and reproduce at sea.  The American eel is our lone representative of this group.

I spent time this week at three fish ladders; at each, I stood transfixed by the sheer determination of the fish to make it upstream and breed.  At Nequasset, where I've been volunteering to count fish as part of their fish ladder restoration project, I stopped by to pick up some smoked herring.  Alewives were an important source of protein for Native Americans and colonists; especially the poor.  (To this day, some towns still give smoked herring to widows in town.)

Harvesting at Nequasset.  These are going for lobster bait.

Price list in the fish house at Nequasset

The smokehouse was full of delicious smoke; a small fire of alder wood is stoked, then smothered with saw dust to create a thick smoke.  Fish are first brined; then smoked for several days.

You know it's spring when these signs go up

Tools of the trade; salt for brining and sticks for hanging herring

The skilled smoker!

Inside the smoke house.  I can't tell you how wonderful it smelled.

Now what do I do with it?

Making a bit of a mess.

I took a dozen home to try.  I have to admit; these were not the easiest things to deal with -- cleaning this small fish was a task.  But I'm glad I tried them; they won't go up on the list with my cherished lobster rolls, but they're part of Maine's heritage, so worth trying.

Harvesting at Damariscotta

I wanted to make it back to Damariscotta for their fish harvesting, so I set an alarm for a pre-dawn departure, tricked a co-worker into coming along found someone I knew would be as fascinated by the process as I would be, and headed out at 5 am to see the fish.  Nequasset is a small-time fish run compared to Damariscotta, where they sometimes have more than a million fish climb the ladder.  It wasn't always this way of course; the run was severely depleted; so recently, they stopped harvesting for a decade, restored the fish ladder, and made conserving the alewife a priority.  One of the things that interests me so much about the alewife is how each town can influence their harvest only through conservation.  Although river herring are squeezed on both ends -- through poor fish passage on rivers and because they are caught as bycatch in offshore fisheries, the actions of each town can greatly influence alewife abundance.  Fish ladder in poor condition, or missing completely?  Overharvest on your run?  No alewives for you.  Fish ladder well designed and maintained?  Harvest just the right amount?  Tons of alewives for you.  Unlike so many fisheries, where the stock is a resource shared by a large amount of people and subject to the "tragedy of the commons", local actions directly influence alewife abundance.  That's why I'm so jazzed about the Damariscotta run.

When we arrived, it was clear the run was, well, overrun.  Below the ladder, fish were massed in giant schools, pushing forward in a mob.  The ladder was completely full, with fish popping over the rungs every second or two.  They were counting fish at the top, and said they have 10 minute counts of 700 fish -- compared to the 200 fish I counted at Nequasset, this is enormous.

Our early arrival allowed us to check out their fish harvest.  This operation is something to see.  Up near the rapids, fish make a choice; go up the ladder (they're the happy fish), or go up the natural waterway, and into the large metal baskets used to harvest.  When the baskets are full, they are tilted into a large funnel; where thousands of fish slide down onto a conveyor belt.  This belt carries them to a flume, and water from the falls carries them down the flume to the collection area.  Fish are put in fish boxes and sold as lobster bait.  (Bait is difficult to get this time of year, so thank an alewife if you come up to Maine for Memorial Day weekend and enjoy a lobster roll.)  It was absolutely worth the early wake up call to see them fishing, and I can tell you, two women showing up at 5 am to learn about fishing?  You get a pretty good reception!  Thanks guys!  But, if you're a late riser, or a guy, you can still check out the ladder -- this weekend is the Alewife Festival.  If I weren't busy packing for Kent Island, I'd make sure to stop by and celebrate the alewife!

These fish turned the wrong way!  Dumping the baskets.

My friend Julie, learning about alewives.  This guy is knee-deep in fish!

Coming down the flume to be collected.

Filling the fish boxes

A good harvest

As usual, plenty of birds were taking advantage of the sea's riches

My final foray into alewives was just around the corner from my house -- at Brunswick Hydro.  This isn't the biggest run around -- I understand the fish ladder leaves much to be desired; therefore many fish can't make it home to breed.  In fact, fish have to be trucked from the ladder upstream, which I find amazing.  Nonetheless, this ladder is worth a visit, because of the unique viewing windows.  The ladder itself can't be easily viewed, but at the top there is a little room (staffed by a knowledgeable interpreter) where you can get a "fish-eye" view of the alewives waiting to trucked to their breeding ground.  Apparently they get around 250,000 fish in a good year, and alewives are joined by shad, white suckers, and even Atlantic salmon (but only a few).

The viewing room

Fish count as of last Saturday

A fish-eye view

Hearing about this run from an expert

They look determined, don't they?

The truck they use to move these fish upstream over the dam.

I'm going to be sad to see alewife season end.  But I'm about to embark on our annual summer adventure -- spending nine weeks up on Kent Island, in the Bay of Fundy.  I'll post when I can (internet, and just about every other modern convenience, is spotty), so look for lots of foggy photos in upcoming weeks.  

Nequasset fish house, today

Some things never change.

GETTING THERE:  

To get the Nequasset fish ladder, from US 1, turn south on Nequasset Road at the Town Hall.  At the bottom, park near the small bridge (DO NOT block the bridge or cross it, the bridge goes to a private residence).  Walk west along the water (~100 feet) and to your left, you will see a gate on a dirt road, with two large concrete blocks on either side.  Follow the dirt road to the ladder; ~100 yards.  

To get to the Damariscotta Mills fish ladder from US1 north, take the Damariscotta exit to business Route 1. Go straight at the stop sign just past the Congregational Church. Take Route 215 north for approximately 1.6 miles. Look for a parking area just past the Austin Road on the left. Or, take the next left into the Fish House parking lot. Follow the path behind the fish house and you are there. Coming south on Route 1, take the Damariscotta exit and take a right on Rt 215 across from the Louis Doe Home Center. The parking lots decribed above are about 1.3 miles on the left.  

To get to the Brunswick Hydro ladder; from US 1, turn onto Maine St in Brunswick. Park at the Ft Andross mill (the large, red brick mill, right on the river) and walk towards the green bridge.  The sign for the ladder is located immediately before the bridge.

Two Fish Ladders -- Nequasset (Woolwich) and Damariscotta Mills (Nobleboro)

They're here. 

Despite a slow start to spring, the alewives have heeded the call of nature, and they're climbing up coastal creeks and rivers all over New York and New England.  And I had a front row seat to the spectacle this week!

I volunteered to count fish at the Nequasset fish ladder.  The Kennebec Estuary Land Trust is working with local authorities to restore the ladder, and is collecting baseline data (before the renovation) to see how many fish are using it.  The first week I was scheduled to count, they contacted us and said "no fish, we're on hold".  Last week, the first full week of May, I went out and counted -- but there were no fish to count.  It's pretty boring staring at the water for ten minutes at a time, when there's nothing to see.  But this week, when I pulled up and parked, I could tell there were going to be fish, because this is what I saw:

Fat and happy gulls, waddling around up on the roof.

And when I arrived at the ladder, it was immediately apparent a switch was flipped, because this image greeted me:

Fish caught in a tidepool at low tide

Fish gathered at the bottom of the ladder.

And when I counted, this is what I counted:

There's a fish!

And there's a fish!

Made it!  Fish pop over the final rung of the ladder, into Nequasset Lake; prime breeding ground.

I had almost 200 in a ten minute period!  Amazing, and not at all boring.  It was a bit hard to concentrate, given the noisy neighbors:

After counting, I simply enjoyed the surroundings:

Downstream; fish house and dam.  Smokehouse to the far left.

The fish ladder.  Note the smoke rising from the smoke house.

Hard won success!  Now, to find a mate.

Of course, I'm a glutton for punishment.  I figure this is a once-a-year event -- why miss a moment of it?  So yesterday I dragged a comrade (and our dogs) on a "marine biology adven-cha", up to Damariscotta Mills.  This is one of the biggest alewife runs, and the ladder is designed so people can get a great view:

A bit of a bigger operation than Nequasset!

I just loved this.

The Damariscotta fish ladder.  Fancy!

Looking down from the top.

Also counting.  Can you see the fish streaming out of the ladder?  Look hard.

This looks something like a theme park!

Waiting for that perfect shot -- an eagle swooping down.  Lots of big lenses were apparent.

At both these ladders, harvest of alewives is allowed.  They're taken for smoking and for lobster bait.  Stay tuned; next week I'll share some photos of the harvest; they only harvest from sunrise Thursdays to sunrise Mondays.  It's time for another adven-cha!

I'll be there!

GETTING THERE:  To get the Nequasset fish ladder, from US 1, turn south on Nequasset Road at the Town Hall.  At the bottom, park near the small bridge (DO NOT block the bridge or cross it, the bridge goes to a private residence).  Walk west along the water (~100 feet) and to your left, you will see a gate on a dirt road, with two large concrete blocks on either side.  Follow the dirt road to the ladder; ~100 yards.  To get to the Damariscotta Mills fish ladder from US1 north, take the Damariscotta exit to business Route 1. Go straight at the stop sign just past the Congregational Church. Take Route 215 north for approximately 1.6 miles. Look for a parking area just past the Austin Road on the left. Or, take the next left into the Fish House parking lot. Follow the path behind the fish house and you are there. Coming south on Route 1, take the Damariscotta exit and take a right on Rt 215 across from the Louis Doe Home Center. The parking lots decribed above are about 1.3 miles on the left.

Alewife Rescue Squad

A proverb:

Under a hot summer sun, the beach is strewn with seastars stranded by the tide.  Soon, they will die from the heat.  A boy starts at one end of the beach, and slowly but surely moves one seastar at a time back to the water.  A man watches him, unimpressed.  As the boy picks up yet another seastar, the man walk up to him and says "Why are you wasting your time, boy?  You can't possibly save all these seastars.  All your work won't make any difference because most of them will die anyways."  The boy, wise beyond his years and still fresh with optimism, replies "Maybe I can't save them all, but to this particular seastar, I'm making all the difference in the world."

In the face of all the environmental problems of our day and age, this is a great lesson to us. Small actions can make a big difference, if we all make good decisions.  And last Saturday, I saw the proverb in action.

We were down in Massachusetts, so Damon could run a road race on Saturday, and I could run my marathon Sunday.  Between the two races, we did a bit of exploring.  Southeastern Mass is near and dear to our hearts, as we both lived there for a time (and in fact met there!).  We were driving through Middleborough, and passed Oliver Mill Park, where long ago I'd seen my first American eel.  It was a gorgeous day; the sun was out; and it felt like the start to a nice warm stretch.  "Wanna check it out?' asked Damon, noting the many cars in the parking lot.

"Sure," I replied. Is he kidding?  Besides, the dog loves a good walk.

The park on the Nemasket River is the site of an old mill, so common in this part of our country.  These mills brought prosperity to New England, but they also devastated the anadromous fish that plied coastal rivers for millenia.  Often, no provision was made for fish to pass upstream and downstream, so they had no way to reproduce and died out quickly.  Some mills put in fish ladders, some of which were successful in making passage possible, some of which were poorly engineered and did little good.

This site has an amazing fish ladder, with water cascading down a series of steps that fish can shoot up and over.  The water's been very cold in Maine, pushing the migration back*, but in Mass, the water was thick with alewives.  We stood transfixed, watching small schools of fish climb each rung.  Once they were over the ladder, they shot upstream.  Below the dam, there were plenty of gulls waiting for a shot at some protein, as is typical at fish ladders up and down the coast.

The fish ladder, which was teeming with alewives.

Gulls below the dam, waiting for a meal.

Along with the fish ladder, the park has the remnants of dams from its industrial past.  These are impassable for fish, but they don't know it.  They gather below the dams, rushing as far as they can upstream, only to be tossed and tumbled in the rapids under the dam.  These are the lost souls of the alewives, who aren't likely to join their counterparts upstream.

Can you see them all in there?  They'd never get over that dam without help!

The day we visited, though, a good Samaritan was watching over some of these lost fish.  Pants rolled up, barefoot, a boy was standing below the dam, searching through the waters with his hands, looking for fish in need of a boost.  It was tough work, and he struggled to keep his foot hold in the rushing water.  But he was successful -- every once in a while, he'd pull out a fish and toss it over the dam.  He had an audience, and with each fish, they'd applaud and cheer.  His enthusiasm was contagious, and soon he had his little brother helping out, and eventually some adults just had to get in and get their hands on some fish.  Maybe they only helped a dozen or so fish.  Not much in the grand scheme of things, it might not seem like much.  But it was enough to make all the difference in the world for those particular fish.

Searching for herring.

The audience waits with baited breath.

Success!  Nice job.

The grownups can't resist.  Notice the fish tumbling in the backwash.

The herring rescue team deploys.

More luck!

Swim little fishies!  Swim if you can -- and they swam and they swam right over the dam!

* I just learned they're here!  Today's my day to go count too!  Woohoo!