By Adam Bosch for Times Herald-Record
It used to be that fishermen could dip their nets into the Hudson River and pull out hundreds of silver-scaled American shad.
It used to be that anglers would line the banks of the Delaware River during the shad’s springtime migration into freshwater, waiting for the chance to hook one of these fighters. That’s how it used to be.
Now overfishing has cut the juvenile shad population to historic lows. The result: The state Department of Environmental Conservation has proposed new regulations to outlaw commercial and recreational shad fishing in the Hudson River for the first time. The rules would also cut the daily recreational limit for shad in the Delaware River by half, from six to three.
The DEC hopes to have its regulations in place by March, before the start of next year’s spawning season.
“It was the last option on the table,” said Kathy Hattala, a fisheries biologist at the DEC. “We had to do it because you won’t have a fishery if you don’t have fish.”
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