Monitoring the abundance of American shad and river herring in Virginia's rivers: 2017 Annual Report
Abstract
This report describes the results of the twentieth year of a continuing study to estimate the relative abundance and assess the status of American shad (Alosa sapidissima) stocks in Virginia by monitoring the spawning runs in the James, York and Rappahannock rivers in spring 2017, evaluating hatchery programs, and contributing to coast-wide assessments (ASMFC 2007). We also report on two fishery-independent monitoring programs, one using staked gillnets in the Rappahannock River (year 2) and the other using anchor gillnets in the Chickahominy River (year 3; a major tributary of the James River),to determine relative abundance and stock structure for the adult spawning run of river herring (A. pseudoharengus, and A. aestivalis Further, we report on the third year of a monitoring program for juvenile alosines by using nighttime surface trawls in the Chickahominy River and calculate an index of juvenile abundance. Additional objectives were to monitor bycatch of American shad in a permitted gill-net fishery and American shad and river herring in pound-net fisheries.
