©2006 By Joe Overlock

For this months article I thought it would be fun to look into the history of Atlantic Salmon here in Western Massachusetts. As many of you already know, 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. Field & Stream Magazine published an interesting fact in one of their magazines a few years ago. They stated that in Colonial New England, England made more money selling Salmon then Spain ever did with their quests for gold in all of the Americas.

In Robert J. Behnke’s book “Trout and Salmon of North America” he reports historic runs only stretched as far south and the Housitonic River in Connecticut. But in doing my own research 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! Now let’s fast forward 66 years to 1743. On March 1, 1743 we find the first attempt to protect salmon fishing in the Connecticut Watershed, more specifically, the Deerfield. The resolve reads as follows:

“Resolve by the General Court, March 1, 1743, "Ordered that the Salmon Fishing Falls in Deerfield River, so called, be reserved for the use of the public, with 20 acres around them for conveniency of fishing."”

Then on February 9, 1779 a law was passed for the Westfield River (it was called the Agawam River back then) banning the taking of salmon by “seines, nets, pots, or otherwise". The law also called for the destruction of any “wears, fence-hurdles, and other incumbrances whatsoever” on the river to give the salmon a clear path for their spawn.

The Act of 1788

By 1788 the salmon in the Connecticut where so over fished that several towns in Hampshire County gathered together and sent a petition to the Senate & House of Representatives calling for action. On June 20, 1788 a law passed called "An Act to Prevent the Destruction of Salmon and Shad in Connecticut River." This limited salmon netting to only four days a week, banned any type of fishing at South Hadley falls and a mile downstream, and limited the length of the nets used to “20 rods”. The proposal was very strongly worded and you could tell that the local residents where very concerned by the problem, here’s a excerpt from it: “By reason of the great number of seines and nets, which are constantly used during the fishing season, in taking Salmon and Shad in Connecticut River, they have decreased for a number of years past, & that there is a great danger the fishery in said river will be destroyed;” Man, were they right, but it wasn’t the over fishing that would lead to their demise.

In 1790 and 1791 Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire all jumped on board with the Act of 1788 and things where looking good for the salmon and shad of the Connecticut River. The citizens where concerned for the river as a whole and realized that “We all live downstream”.

The Beginning of the End

In 1792, when John Hancock was governor of Massachusetts and George Washington was in his first term as president, a company that would later turn into today’s Western Massachusetts Power Company was chartered by the General Court of Massachusetts as "the Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on the Connecticut River." The purpose of the proprietors was to improve the navigability of the river from the mouth of the Chicopee River to the Vermont/New Hampshire state line.

In 1794, the proprietors decided that the development of navigation on the river would be better served by dividing the project between two separate companies. Accordingly, the General Court chartered the proprietors of the Upper Locks and Canals on the Connecticut River to operate from the mouth of the Deerfield River northerly to the state line. The responsibility of the original company became the area between the mouth of the Chicopee River and the mouth of the Deerfield River.

That same year, the proprietors started work on a log-crib dam extending across the Connecticut River at a place called "Great Falls" (now Turners Falls). A canal 2.5 miles long and 20 feet wide was constructed from the dam to a point downstream near the mouth of the Deerfield River. Included in the construction were several locks and the equipment and structures. A towpath was on the easterly shore of the canal along which teams of horses and mules did the towing. The canal had several locks. Upstream a dam and single-lock canal was built near the mouth of the Millers River, allowing barges to bypass the French King rapids. The canals were opened for business in 1798, and by 1802 there was regular freight traffic by boat from Long Island Sound to Bellows Falls, Vermont.

Big business prevailed over environmental concerns. And just to add insult to injury, on March 11, 1797 the Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives repealed The Act of 1788 that protected the salmon and shad from over fishing. After 9 years in effect they deemed the act unnecessary. By 1806 Atlantic Salmon where extinct in the upper stretches of the Connecticut.

The citizens wouldn’t accept this defeat though. What few salmon that still existed in the river they wanted to protect. In 1818 a law was passed banning any type of fishing for salmon and shad within 1.5 miles of the Hadley dam. But it was all for nothing. The dams had won.

Today

Today there are more than 1000 dams in the entire Connecticut River Basin. The current restoration of Atlantic salmon to the Connecticut River basin began in 1967. It is a major cooperative effort between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization, State fish and wildlife departments in the watershed, private organizations, and industry. The Connecticut River Atlantic Salmon Commission was established by Congress in 1983 to provide guidance to these many entities and to ensure cooperation. Management practices include raising salmon in hatcheries, capturing and spawning sea-run Atlantic salmon, stocking juveniles in tributaries, and providing access to habitat by building fish passage facilities. These cooperative management efforts have resulted in the successful reintroduction of Atlantic salmon to the Connecticut River watershed.

Despite the large number of hatchery raised salmon being introduced into the Connecticut River every year, the returning numbers are still low. In 2005, fish counters only spotted 186 salmon returning. A river that once held enough salmon to feed a nation, now barely holds enough returning salmon to fill a small pond.

I once heard a historian say, “If history teaches us anything it’s that we never learn from history.” I think this is an awfully negative way to look at life but in many ways it’s true. The same arguments are still going on today. The battle between environment and big business still wages on. Our voices are louder now thanks to communication tools like the Internet, but despite this business men and politicians still propose new ways to destroy our environment, all in the name of progress. We live in an age where it’s unsafe to eat the fish in the streams or take a drink from the waters. The sad thing is that the average person has accepted that as normal. That is why it’s important to get involved with a good environmental organization. Join your local Trout Unlimited Chapter or Watershed Council, get educated, and get active.