May 22, 2009 Alewives annual journey gets easier in Maine Play video

(NECN: Amy Sinclair, Damariscotta Mills, Maine) - At first, your eyes see only the rushing water. Then, you begin to see them, thousands of slippery silver fish swimming mightily against the current.

Alewives, sometimes called river herring, have been putting on this homecoming parade up the fish ladder to Damariscotta Lake every May for hundreds of years.

Deb: "The towns of Newcastle and Nobleboro built the ladder in 1807. And there are times they come as a wave up the bay and it's very exciting."

While alewives do run elsewhere, Damariscotta mills is the state's largest and most productive fishery.

And there are plenty of vantage points to stop to ponder this fish's extraordinary life cycle.

Deb: "They spawn in fresh water so the juveniles are born here, they go back down the fish ladder they go out to see until they're 3-4 years typically at a 4 years they come back and spawn.

Each female will lay 60-100 thousand eggs in the lake take a rest then make the journey back. Assuming they don't fall victim to predation they’ll make a return trip not once but two three times in their lifetime.

It is a journey fraught with peril. First they have to make it past the hungry osprey in the bay. Then they have to watch where they're going, and just when they can see the finish line, large mouth bass are waiting to pick them off.

Thanks to a half million dollar community-wide restoration effort the journey just got a whole

They've spent the last 8 months rebuilding the shape and elevations of the resting pools and shoots called "weirs" so the fish don't have to work so hard.

Deb: "now what we have are fish that are energized because they're not exhausted by trip up here.

Their early fish counts, which are taken several times a day, show more fish returning to the lake in much better shape

Deb: "and this is the beginning of the run we expect greater as run progresses.":

Because conservation is their top priority, they let the alewives run for a few days without interruption before they begin the harvesting tradition that dates back to the 1700s.

It takes three men to coral the skittish fish past the gulls and into the mechanical dippers,

But for the lobster men standing patiently in line, it's worth the wait..

Alewives are shoveled unceremoniously into crates and hauled away by lobstermen who say they look forward to the alewife run because it gives them something different to put in their bait bags.

Of course lobsters aren't the only ones who feast on this seasonal treat.

Hundreds of salted alewives are strung up in the rafters inside Mulligans smoke shack in preparation for the big festival this weekend. MJ's been stringing up these smokers for 40 years.

If a plate of bony baitfish doesn't sound all that appetizing, the birds and the lobstermen will be happy to have them...leaving an appreciative public to stand along the parade route cheering the alewives on.

www.damariscottamills.org