ROCHESTER — March 31, 2012 – The herring are running in the Mattapoisett River, and the number of fish heading upstream has gladdened the heart of Rochester's herring inspector Dave Watling.
"I was getting a little concerned because everyone else was getting them early, like Middleboro and a couple of places down the Cape," he said. "But they showed up around the 20th and they were coming hot and heavy from the 20th to the 26th."
The automatic fish counter at Snipatuit Pond has already recorded 3,000 more fish swimming past than the total recorded for all of last year, Watling said.
River herring stocks plummeted on the river over the past decade, from more than 130,000 in 2000 to around 10,000 in recent years, he said.
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