They use to say "When dogwoods bloom, the shad will boom."

Susquehanna River fishing along Port Deposit is a traditional hotspot,
There was a time in 1608 when Captain John Smith ascended the river and thought that the water was boiling. The fish, Shad and Herring were so plentiful that they often were "boiling" above the surface. Many of Port Deposit citizens made there fortune and livelihood from catching the migratory fish. If you have read any of our other history stories you will know that along with the possibility that we live in natures paradise were also have suffered the fury of her seasons and storm. The Susquehannocks used to have a saying, that there was major storm on the Susquehanna every fourteen years. History documents that many time it was yearly or almost every other year that nature would overwhelm human progress. So much so that  in 1910 a storm was so destructive that it was decided that a dam upstream was feasible. It was being sold to the public and politicians as a way of generating power for a booming Philadelphia as well as having river taming benefits for the towns down stream of her. So that in 1928 the Conowingo dam was built as a hydro-electric plant. About the same time the railroad convinced local residents to give up their rights to water access in Port Deposit and built a burme that  put the tracks above a 500 year flood plain.

This more than anything else had a devastating effect on the population and diversity of the Shad and Herring. Shad and Herring are migratory fish that travel from the ocean through brackish water to streams to spawn. They are fish that always return to the place of the births. These fish fill find the river from where they were hatched, often returning to the same creek or small stream.  This natural phenomen  appears to be generically etched in them. The dam at Conowingo and along other rivers in the Chesapeake have stopped that natural migration. During the period from 1928 to the late 1980's The population of these fish dropped almost 90% in just 60 years.

Recently in the past 10 years programs have been started by power companies working with the Department of  Natural Resources to run fish lifts to place as many fish as possible on the other side of the dam during the spawning season. This is to increase diversity as well as increase the population of these fodder fish. Many other fish feed on these smaller fish. all of the Chesepeake Bay has affected by the presence of  the dams.

.Stocking efforts, a bay wide moratorium on shad fishing, and creative fish passage development on the Susquehanna River have helped to increase the number of shad returning to Conowingo Dam from several hundred per year in the early 1980s to an average 142,000 per year in 2001-2003.

In 2003, it is estimate that 125,135 shad returned--the third best year ever on record since conservation began. this was an improvement over 2002. But regardless the Susquehanna populations are far below the estimated carrying capacity of 2 million fish and definitely not enough to make the river boil as in Captain Smith's time.