VERNON — To me, Karl Meyer's piece in the Feb. 2 Commons, “A bad year for the river,” was improperly titled.
He asked the question, “Are we returning to the 1950s, when the Connecticut River was dubbed the most beautifully landscaped sewer in America?”
I say that if you are on the water and fish the river, you'd most likely say “no.”
Meyer appears to have an axe to grind with anyone who, by whatever means, generates power on the Connecticut River. He comes off as an “anti-anything” individual who, like others, likes to point to the decline in the annual shad run or the blue back herring as prime indicators that the power companies are up to no good and killing off these fish.
I'd like to make a few observations as someone who has lived near and fished the river since childhood. In the 1960s, I was growing up in Chicopee, Mass., and spent the spring shad fishing the river below the Holyoke Dam. You could catch shad all day long until your arms ached. It was a great way for a kid to spend their day.
I still fish there pretty much every year now, but there is a big difference in the catch, and the numbers you catch. Today, the big draw is the striped bass. You'll see people there after work in the afternoon fishing for these bass. In years past, “stripers” were a rare sight. As a matter of fact, I recall catching one and calling Frank Sousa, the outdoors writer for the Springfield Newspapers, about it.
Frank was known to have a sense of humor, and he made mention of my catch in a sort of tongue-in-cheek way, writing that the next thing we'll hear is that the shrimp boats are coming!
Today, I do not know whether the lift in Holyoke operates around the clock or just during certain hours. But we do know that New Hampshire Fish and Game Department has been trucking shad from Holyoke and releasing them above Vernon Dam. We do not know whether the fish have issues with the ladder at Turners Falls, but it sure seems it. We also have very little factual history of the fish and truly what it was like before the dams ever existed.
We do know. however, that commercial fishing for shad has declined, as well as sport fishing, but we should temper our decisions on a cure until such time as we actually know the cause. I'd venture to guess that it's a multifaceted cause that will take some serious study to determine.
Salmon restoration and fish ladders? Now that's another story....