November 4, 2024 — Bailey Bowden, chair of Penobscot’s alewife committee, just received news he’s been hoping to hear for a decade.
On Oct. 23, the quasi-governmental Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) approved the management plan for shad and river herring, including alewives, submitted by the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR). That state plan includes a proposal to reopen Penobscot’s commercial fishery at Wight’s Pond.
“It’s been over 10 years,” Bowden said of the permitting process. It’s been decades more — since 1974, to be exact — since Penobscot’s last commercial harvest of alewives, Bowden said.
In recent years, volunteers on the town’s alewife committee painstakingly counted alewives each spring as they entered the fresh waters of the pond via Winslow Stream from the salt water of Northern Bay.