Episode 48
Copyright © John Page Williams, Jr. all rights reserved.
This is John Page Williams with another reading from my Chesapeake Almanac. The entry is from the month of March and it is entitled, "Early Spring Fish."
Cold weather is losing its grip on the Chesapeake, but even a mild winter cools the Bay waters down far enough for most cold-blooded creatures like fish to go dormant. March looks dull and bare and brown, but there are more of these cold-blooded animals stirring than meets the eye, at least at first glance. Look closely. There are already several signs of spring in the water.
The water's still cold, hovering around 4 degrees Celsius or 39.2 Fahrenheit, but Norfolk spot have been spawning since December out in the Atlantic on the continental shelf. The earliest born juveniles will be entering the Bay mouth, riding the deep currents up to rich summering grounds in almost all the tributaries and the marsh guts. Right now, they're hard for the laymen to find; they're tiny and transparent, they're deep in the cold waters of the open Bay. But they're there, and their presence is just as much a benchmark of the change of seasons as the first crocuses and daffodils on land.
Winter flounde, as their name implies, are also active in the lower Bay now. In fact, this month is the peak of their spawning season, at temperatures of 2 to 5 degrees Celsius, or 36 to 41 Fahrenheit. After they finish spawning, they will move to shallow waters. They will make up part of the early catch of pound net fishermen along the Virginia Bayshore and so they'll find their ways to fish markets.
The pound-netters will see other evidences of spring this month. As rains flush detritus, or decayed plant material, out of the winter marshes, the zooplankton populations will begin to build, and members of the herring family will come into the Bay to browse on them. Labrador herring are the first to arrive. Unlike their relatives, these fish are ocean spawners. They enter the Chesapeake only as opportunists to take advantage of the rich early-season food supply before they go back to the sea.
Shortly thereafter, the alewives, or river herring, enter. They may feed briefly, but they are on their way up the Bay and to its rivers to spawn. The plankton will benefit them most on their way back down to the Atlantic. Again it will be net fishermen who will see them first. Those that are caught will be salted for eating or frozen for crab bait. The Atlantic menhaden, by the way, is often called "alewife" or "elwye" in the upper Bay. It's a different species, though closely related to herring.
The rivers and creeks are lower in volume of water, so they will warm faster than the main Bay. As a result, there will be more early activity in them. These smaller bodies also tend to be more sheltered (and therefore somewhat safer for boatmen), so they will be the areas where recreational anglers open up their seasons.
The yellow perch is not large, reaching a maximum length of 15 inches in the Chesapeake's tributaries. It is, however, a sporting fish on light tackle, and very good to eat, particularly if taken from cold water. In a mild winter, yellow perch will be moderately active even in January and February, especially the females with roe developing in their bellies. Unlike the herring, yellow perch feed heavily during their spawning runs.
Their numbers declined in Maryland in the 1980s because of water quality problems in the spawning streams, probably exacerbated by historically heavy fishing pressure. Tight fishing restrictions and habitat improvements have since helped them in some of the rivers, and stocks are growing, albeit slowly.
Small increases in water temperature say from 3 to 5 degrees Celsius or from 37 to 41 degrees Fahrenheit will start the perch schooling in rivers like the Bush at the head of the Bay and in small creeks like Mount Landing on the Rappahannock. Optimum spawning temperature is 8 to 11 Celsius or 46 to 52 Fahrenheit. The perch move up to the head of tidal influence on the creek, sometimes that's a beaver dam, and the females lay their long ribbons of eggs. The males fertilize them immediately and the skeins drift down with the current until they catch on submerged vegetation or the branches of fallen trees. There they wave in the current, changing directions with the tide, hatching in about a month.
Yellow perch runs can be frustrating to anglers, though. a bluebird day in March is something to treasure, and the warming trend that comes with it can trigger spawning. But March is fickle and a cold, cloudy day with rain can shut the run right off. Because of changes in the weather, the peak of the run in any one creek will often be short, lasting perhaps only a day or two. Then the fish head back downstream and disperse, leaving the ribbons of eggs behind.
There are other fish moving in the freshwater creeks in March. White suckers are spawning too, leaving eggs singly or in small groups on the bottom. Just as the yellow perch had begun to school in the creeks a week or so before spawning, so now the white perch are doing the same. They will begin laying eggs shortly after the yellows finish, and will reach their peak a week or two later, when water temperature is about 15 degrees Celsius, or right on 59-60 degrees Fahrenheit. The silvery minnow, a common forage fish in the creeks, will also be spawning then.
Throughout the month, on sunny days, largemouth bass and chain pickerel will be foraging in the warmest shallows. They too have roe developing and need food to keep the process going. April will see them spawning along with the alewives and the first of the blueback herring, close ken of the alewives.
But April is another story. Officially part of spring, with green leaves coming out and shadbush blooming. The signs of new life are more subtle in March, hanging on small changes in temperature and occurring against a black backdrop of winter drabness. Because of that contrast those changes are all the more exciting.
For more happenings around the Bay in March see our other Chesapeake Almanac podcasts and read our blog posts "Tiny, Timid, Timberdoodle Dancers," March's Lion Has Lost His Teeth," and "Watching Northern Water Snakes in March."
