CONTENTS

A study of the Hudson River shad (Alo8a 8apidi88ima) was undertaken during 1950 and 1951 as part of a shad investigat.ion carried out by the Fish and Wildlife Service to supply information to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission for fishery regulation along the Atlantic coast. Catch and effort statistics were ob-tained for the years 1915 through 1951, from various sources, for the gill-net fishery which catches more than 95 percent of the shad in the Hudson River. A tagging program during 1951 gave estimates of the total shad populat.ion entering the river that year. The total run and the escapement (since the catch was known) werc then calculated for each year from 1915 through 1950. Age analysis of a sample of the catch of 1950 and 1951 showed that most shad returned as adults to the river at 4 and 5 years of age. Also, about 50 percent of the fish had previously spawned. It was shown that about 85 percent of the variation in size of the run between 1920 and 1951 could be attributed to the size of the escapement from the fishery. No correlation was found between the size of the run each year and such factors as st.rea