Video of river herring in the Ipswich River EBSCO dam fish ladder

A few days ago it was all about sea lamprey. In the past two days the alewife have really taken over! I'm getting reports of dozens in the fish-way at any one time. The Division of Marine Fisheries trap is seething with them! This is great news for a fish that's declining all over the east coast. See my post from March for more info about their decline in the Ipswich River.

To help out the amazing band of volunteer fish-watchers who eagerly keep an eye out for river herring every spring I've put together this blog to show them what a herring looks while it's hanging out in the fish-way.

Looking upriver towards the DMF trap I got some great footage of a brook trout (the approximate 8" fish) and the much larger herring. Click here to view it in high quality on YouTube.


If the trout was the only fish in the trap entrance it would be easy to confuse it with the herring if you didn't have the size comparison. But from closely
watching the video you can see the trout's tail does not have a very big fork and the caudal peduncle (the part of the fish right before the tail) is wide:


The herring has a much deeper fork in its tail and
a skinny caudal peduncle. They also always seem to me to swim faster than the more seemingly lazy trout.





Looking off the platform towards the ladder itself is a much more turbid view. But you can still see herring trying to make their way towards the trap. Click here to watch it in high quality on YouTube:




Shoot me a comment if you have any questions. Enjoy! -kate