Young shad - called shad fry - are barely more than "two eyes and a wiggle" when they emerge, but they soon undergo one of the most important processes of their entire existence. The shad fry, which have been "imprinted" with the Susquehanna waters, begin their migration downriver, through the Chesapeake Bay and into the ocean.
Those that survive the journey will return to the Susquehanna as adults weighing four to eight pounds. Male shad typically return after three or four years, while females come back as four- or five-year-olds. Upon their return to their natal rivers, the shad spawn and produce a new generation.
For centuries, this cycle played out all across the Susquehanna watershed. Because of the long absence of the shad, however, today few Pennsylvanians are aware that the American shad once ruled the Susquehanna River and its tributaries. The shad's sheer abundance made for bountiful harvests each spring during their spawning runs.
The largest member of the herring family, American shad was one of the region's most valued commodities for commerce and daily living through the 1830s. Shad was a key food source for early settlers and later helped spur economic growth due to its commercial value.
Shad runs in the Susquehanna began declining in the mid-1800s and were lost altogether in the early part of the 20th century, primarily because of the construction of dams. The shad's natural migratory cycle had been broken.
"This is a major waterway in the state," says Rickalon Hoopes, a fisheries biologist with Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. "It runs from the southern border to the New York border. It supports a large run of shad on the East Coast.
While initially the decline of the shad may have been troubling, the fact that shad is an important baitfish greatly affected the ecosystem of the river.
"American shad is a great sport fish," Hoopes says. "They get large. From an economic point of view, fishing trips were lost and fish harvest was lost. Shad is important to (those communities) where they continue to be abundant."
"There was technically no feasible way of getting the passes through," Hoopes says. "(Dams) eliminated the shad run from the upper river."
Officials have been aware of the shad issue for decades. Four different utility companies have dams on the river. Long ago all four began paying a shad "passage payment" to the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission to help fund a future project to solve the problem.
Interest in the shad passage began anew in the late 1950s. "There were many years of meetings and negotiations with the power companies to accomplish the fish passages," Hoopes says. Construction of the new passages finally began in 1996.
As it turns out, a shad "passage" would be aptly described as a hallway and an elevator.
A "hallway" leads to "an elevator-like device," Hoopes says. "The way this works is a bucket goes down in a shaft, a door opens and shad are attracted by a huge flow of water; several hundred feet a second. The shad crowd in and the door is shut. They are then (lifted) to a trough that allows them to swim upstream past the dams.
Occasionally, Hoopes says, other fish such as walleye, smallmouth bass and channel catfish are caught up in the flow, as well. "They all seem to have an interest in moving up river."
Currently, the $70 million project -- the largest fish restoration project in the nation -- appears to be a success. Pennsylvania state officials are quite pleased with the results.
As of mid-June this year alone, 4,500 shad were recorded going through the York Haven Power dam. At all the elevators on the river combined, over 218,000 shad were recorded using the passageways this year. In addition, a coalition of state and private groups and the Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna’s River Project released 170 million juvenile shad between 1976 and 1997.
Shad is making a booming comeback along the East Coast, which directly affects anglers -- 10 million a year.
