Tag Archives: local herring runs
Middleboro-Lakeville Herring Fishery Commission considers reopening local herring runs to fishing
MIDDLEBORO — Each spring for countless centuries, hundreds of thousands of herring have made an arduous journey from Mount Hope Bay, upstream along the Taunton and Nemasket Rivers, to reach their traditional spawning grounds in the Assawompsett Ponds Complex in Lakeville. For thousands of years, too, people living in these parts depended on the abundant alewife fishery as an important source of food and income.,, These days, a joint Middleboro-Lakeville Herring Fishery Commission supervises the local herring runs, closed to fishing since 2006, when a sharp decline in herring populations prompted a statewide ban on fishing. Now that the fishery has rebounded to respectable numbers, the two towns are considering re-opening the local herring runs, possibly as early as the 2018 spring migration. The move would help revive a tradition that has been ongoing – and well regulated – since the 1700s. click here to read the story 18:01
