Herring Run

I took a bike ride with a friend the other day to Horn Pond in Woburn, Massachusetts to watch the Herring make their annual journey upstream to spawn. They swim upstream to lay and fertilize eggs in freshwater streams and lakes and then return to the ocean. The young grow and mature in fresh water and then head out to the ocean in the fall. 

There are several dams blocking their passage but there are also fish ladders up to the dam at the south end of Horn Pond. There is a narrow passageway up this dam. We talked to some watershed association volunteers who were counting fish and they were hoping to improve the passage into a more formal fish ladder. As it is now many fish get stuck under the impassable part of the dam. While we were there two people came with large nets and were scooping huge numbers of fish from under the dam and tossing them into the lake above the dam.

Here is a video I took of fish waiting to climb up to the pond.

On the way back we stopped at the fish ladder at the Center Falls Dam in Winchester which has some informational displays including the map above. Unfortunately because of the grate covering the ladder you can't really see the fish. Here is a map of the entire watershed via the Mystic River Watershed Association.