American Shad Restoration on Potomac River (Wash., DC)

Our club hosted Mr. Jim Cummins of the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River (ICPRB) as the speaker for our March 2007 meeting, which was last night.

Mr. Cummins spoke about the history of the not only the Shad fishery on the Potomac, but about the history and development of the river basin itself. He covered topics like the affect of deforestation of the basin; commercial fishing practices; and efforts to reopen the river basin to Shad spawning runs, and restore the fishery. His presentation took you from what the basin was like in the pre-colonial period, up through the current state of the basin and fishery. He had a power-point presentation that contained a lot of pictures, graphs, etc. In addition, he covered the well-known hot spots, some locations to watch (for potential hot spots in the future), and tactics for catching them.

It was a very interesting presentation, that invoked a wide range of emotions. I would highly recommend seeing his presentation if you have the opportunity. Or go the ICPRB web site http://www.potomacriver.org/

Dave

Dave it looks like the ICPRB does great work. A lot of anadromous fish seem to be able to bounce back once the water is cleaned up and fish passage is ensured.

Those stories from the old days are amazing, it would be great to get those runs back.

Thanks for posting.

peregrines