Atlantic Salmon

A nice article:

"Atlantic Salmon used to dominate our streams here in New England. The early settlers made reports of salmon runs so large that they would fill up entire rivers. Farmers would use pitch forks to spear the salmon and toss them on the river banks by the hundreds...

...I found a copy of “The American Angler’s Guide” by J.J. Brown, published in 1849. In it he reports Atlantic Salmon as being netted in the Hudson River in New York in June of 1844. There is also mention of a law in New York State prohibiting the taking of salmon by net, hook, or spear “or any other device whatsoever” in the months of October and November. There is no mention of a date on which the law was put into effect though.

Being that the Hoosic is part of the Hudson River Watershed, it’s not out of the question that both our major watersheds here in Berkshire County (the Hoosic and Housitonic) could have once held salmon runs. We may never know the size of those runs or if they happened at all, but we do know that the Connecticut River once contained an enormous run of Atlantic Salmon. In the late 1700’s two dams where built on the Connecticut bringing centuries of salmon runs to an end (Hadley 1794, Turners Falls 1798). It only took twelve short years for Atlantic Salmon to become extinct in the tributaries of the Connecticut in Vermont, New Hampshire, and northern Massachusetts including the Deerfield River. But anglers even then saw the impending doom of over fishing the salmon long before these two dams where built.

The Beginning of Commercial Fishing in the Connecticut River

The earliest account of salmon fishing the Connecticut I’ve found is from the minutes of a Town Meeting in Springfield, MA in 1688 and they are as follows (note the original spellings):

1677 -- Minutes of May 2, 1677 town meeting of the Town of Springfield, Mass.:

"Further also Goodm. Lamb, Serjeant Morgan, Joseph Crowfoot, John Clarke Sr., Charles Ferry with such others as they shal take in with them have ye liberty of fishing for this yeere from ye falls in Chickuppi River where the wading place is, down to ye mouth of that river, provided they enter not upon any mans lands or proprietyes there, provided they also shal supply such neighbors as shal desire to have fish of them; & their Salmon they may not sel for more than six pence apiece there, or at ye town more than eight pence, and shad fish they may not sel for more than half pence apiece there, or more than a penny at the Town, & in case they barrel up for market, they are to allow to the Town twelve pence a barrel for all that shal be transported."

To translate that into modern term, those guys where selling Atlantic Salmon for 6 cents locally, 8 cents in the city per fish, not per pound. Salmon where so abundant in our rivers they would even feed them to pigs!"