Herring Run

Long Pond provides spawning habitat for alewife, white perch, and blueback herring, as well as nursery and foraging habitat for American eel. The river herring start visiting the Cape’s streams and ponds in mid March to spawn. The adults then return back to the ocean by July. The juvenile river herring will grow to about 2 to 3 inches long in the ponds and attempt to leave for the ocean in the early fall season.

This spring we’ve been fortunate to witness thousands of herring swimming up our run. It is not always the case as the run needs some remedial work. We are in contact with the town engineers regarding restoration of the herring run. We will keep you informed.

In the meantime, please be aware that while fishing in Long Pond is allowed, it is unlawful in the State of Massachusetts to harvest river herring which includes both alewife and blueback herring. 

Please read more details below about the fascinating history and structure of our herring run.

Centerville River herring run

The herring run flows from Lake Wequaquet into Long Pond beneath an arched white bridge mid-way along the north shore and exits directly south between Holly Lane and Blantyre Avenue. From there it heads south to Nantucket Sound. It carries the grand name of “Centerville River”, but is really a wide ditch, whose digging in 1867 by Civil War veterans is documented at the town library. It was dug to be a herring run, so was likely stocked with herring soon after completion.

This year (2023) thousands of herring have come up from the ocean to breed in Long Pond and Lake Wequaquet. They began life here in past years, migrated to the continental shelf in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, then returned to their birthplace to spawn when mature. The source of this spectacular navigation feat is unknown. Some make the migration several times, but mortality from predators is high. In our Pond, herring gulls and ospreys are the only predators we’ve seen this year, but in past years, cormorants, great blue herons, black crowned night herons and bass have taken a toll.

Of the two species of river herring in Long Pond, alewife come up the run first, when the water temperature reaches 51 degrees F. Blueback herring come later when the water warms to 57 degrees F. They live on microscopic animals, by filtering them from the water as they swim. During migration, they eat little. The female herring lay 60,000 to 100,000 or more eggs each. Their fry, born in May and June, spend a few months here before heading out to sea.

For the last few years we joined the Cape-wide counting effort led by the Association to Preserve Cape Cod who compiles the counts from several dozen herring runs on the Cape. Counting consists of nine or more ten-minute shifts each day in April and May. APCC forwards the complied data to Mass Dept of Marine Fisheries in New Bedford, and they calculate an ‘actual count’, extrapolated from the observation data. If you are interested in helping our count, please contact us.

Our herring population seems to prefer the ‘first light’ of sunrise, and we’ve seen some migrating at night. There are eyewitness accounts from the 1960’s and earlier of the herring run being full of millions of silver fish, all struggling against the current to get to their spawning grounds. Perhaps you or your relatives have such a story. If so, please share it with us.