"...did you hear the one about the old guy and the Cadillac?"

Hello Shad Fans! How's it going? Ready for another exciting entry into the world of Shad hauling on the Delaware? Hope you're all having a great time enjoying the weather we've been having the past few days here in New Jersey. Well... if you're not in New Jersey, then you'd better move here...if only to enjoy the beautiful weather.

Had the past weekend off from fishing and Saturday Janet and I made our yearly trek to the Crawfish Festival in Augusta, NJ. Last year at the festival we made the acquaintance of the head chef of Prejean's in Lafayette, LA. Then, last summer we traveled through cajun country and ate a lot of meals at Prejean's. We used Lafayette as a base and took side trips from there. Prejean's proved to be one of our favorite restaurants in Louisiana.
For those of you who didn't get a chance to read that blog here is the address: http://cajuncountrytravels.blogspot.com/.
Well, at the Crawfish Fest this year we ate boil of course, gumbo, oysters and jambalaya, but we didn't come away from the festival making pigs of ourselves. That's because we danced! We waltzed and two-stepped to the Pine Leaf Boys and jiggled (a lot) to Terrence Simiens and the Zydeco Experience. Every once in awhile Mr. Simiens would hold aloft the Grammy he had just won and after his show he offered to pose with all who wanted to get a picture of it! It was a great time.

Back to the hauling today. Steve called me this afternoon and asked if I was coming down to the river. I knew he would be shy a few crew members. Tim's on vacation...at Lake Hopatcong of all places... and the Bakers are in New York to hear their son sing at Carnegie Hall. So, when Steve called to see if I was going to come down I knew it would be a skeleton crew. We ended up going out with 200 yards of net and only four men on the crew. I rowed, but because this was not a run-around it wasn't fast and furious. I still worked up a sweat though because it was a constant row. We hurtled into the river and then strained against the net's length as we pulled it tight with our paddling. Steve stood in the back of the boat and called people to come down to help haul in the nets. Now, the past couple of hauls we had this woman come down with spirited people interested in Shad. She's a science professor at Brookdale Community in Lincroft and she has this idea about getting Shad to spawn in the Raritan Bay. Today she arrived, but with only two of her students and those three rounded out our crew. We only caught one gizzard shad, which disappointed the professor, but a chinese woman bought it and a number of suckers. She also wanted carp, but the monsters we hauled in were far too big for her so we freed them. Of course, we had to throw back the stripers and bass.

Today was the last day of hauling for Shad, unless, Steve warned, something crazy happens. But I think that's it. It's rare that they go out in June, so this was unique. All told we caught somewhere around 108 American Shad for the season. I asked Steve how many in one season did he ever catch and he rattled off an astonishing number in the thousands! I asked if this was cyclical and if the numbers would ever come back to that level. Both he and Ted agreed that the numbers have been steadily dwindling since the 80's. There are bumps in the numbers in some years, but the trend has been a lessening in the amount of Shad caught. Charlie, who came down afterwards with her daughter Adelaide, told Steve about Shad hauling records from the 1890's that were recently found squirrled away in someone's house and asked Steve if he wanted them! His eyes arched and he got very animated. "Of course!" was the reply. He said there were vast sections of non existant records from that era so this was treasure trove.

After Charlie, Dan and their two daughters left I noticed Ted was lingering. He usually takes off soon after we are finished, but he sat down in the shed and started trading stories with Steve about fishing and other antics from the past. I was going to leave, but I sat to listen. Steve and Ted talked about how they used to go out three times a day, hauling in the pitch black by the end of the day. At the time though they were catching a lot of Shad, so many that the state employees who were there at the time trying to tag some of the Shad ran out of tags! They used to also haul a lot of herring from the river, though this year we only caught one. Steve then told me the story of the old guy and the Cadillac. One day an old man drove up from Trenton and said he'd take all the herring they would catch that day. That's a dangerous proposition, because at the time they were hauling in hundreds of herring a night. But when they came up to his late model Cadillac with several bushels of the fish he didn't flinch. The fellow opened the trunk, laid some plastic bags down and they poured all these herrings into it. The car must have stunk to high heaven. We chuckled, then said our good-byes, the end of another season. I walked back to the mainland with Ted. We shook hands and wished each other well.

Earlier, Steve told us to pencil in June 20th for an "end of season picnic" no doubt to be held on the island. (Maybe we can go out then one more time....)

love and shad....they make the world go round!

thanks for reading.
greg