The Founding Fish

I have to admit to being a huge John McPhee fan. His books and essays are always interesting and Founding Fish about the American shad is no exception. McPhee always does his homework, seeking out the knowledgeable and then going further to double-check even their information. For example, one little tidbit is the myth surrounding the role of shad in saving the Revolutionary Army at Valley Forge. The prevailing wisdom, cited in numerous sources is that the shad run was early that winter and without the abundance of fish the army would have starved. Often cited as a source is a letter purportedly by Nathan Hale who, McPhee, points out had died in September of 1776, and so could have had little knowledge of Valley Forge events. (I was show more pleased to see that the Valley Forge Historical Society does not perpetuate the myth(http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/youasked/044.htm.)

The idea that early settlers also feasted on fish appears doubtful even though they were plentiful. Archaeological studies reveal few fish bones except among slave diets. It appears that, coming from beef loving England, they were eager to have a beef laden diet in the colonies as well. Washington caught thousands of shad at Mount Vernon, but used them mostly as fertilizer and slave food. It's a bony fish, and like the lobster, took many decades to be accepted as "upscale" in restaurants.

Like salmon, the shad is anadromous (running upstream,) but differs in that while the salmon dies after spawning at the end of its run, the shad can make the trip up and back to the ocean several times.

Only McPhee could take such an arcane subject and weave culture, history, physiology, and natural science so ably together. show less

I learned a lot from this book--about shad, the history of shad fishing and eating, the damming of East Coast rivers, and more. But this is not McPhee's best, or maybe the fact that I do not fish and eat fish very rarely (usually in a tuna salad sandwich) just made this less interesting to me. I did not much enjoy the endless stories about him fishing--it was just like listening to a co-worker tell his longwinded fishing stories and just no thank you LOL. I did find the last chapter, Catch and Release, very interesting, but I have long thought that catch and release can't be good for the fish, and that fishing for fun and fight is cruel to the fish (as is laying them out to suffocate when keeping the fish).

I love this newish genre of commodity history or micro-history. The game is dominated by Michael Pollan and Mark Kurlansky, but now owned by the duo as this McPhee title shows. John brings to bear a love of history and fishing to talk about 17th and 18th Century America and the ways and impact of the shiny shad.

Admittedly, this is much more fishing than history...

Terribyly narrated buy the author while he eats and drinks.

Could be my favorite McPhee. I'm not interested in any type of fish on any level, so it's got to be McPhee

This book was a bit of a slog for me. It was like listening in on someone's fishing diary - 'this other guy caught x number of shad, but I don't know how he did it because I didn't catch any'. Interspersed was a lot of information about the natural history, biology, ecology of shad, and some history thrown in as well. McPhee (the author) spent a lot of time with shad fishermen, shad scientists, and shad scientist fishermen, and described what he learned both in terms of fishing techniques and fishery science. Which normally would have interested me, but I felt was written rather dryly. One of the most interesting sections was the investigation about the importance of a bumper crop of shad to George Washington's Revolutionary Army during show more the winter of Valley Forge and the lack of supporting evidence for this perhaps apocryphal story.

Overall, it's alright, I didn't catch any major errors and I don't have any major criticisms, but most of the sections and for whatever reason just didn't really keep my interest despite initial enthusiasm. show less

Shad fishing in various rivers including the Connecticut River which is why it is of special interest to me. Holyoke Dam, the fish ladders, the prize-winning shad in Holyoke, the andromadous fish research station at Turners Falls, MA,