CTFishTalk.com: Storms, Barrier Cuts and Shore Fisheries IMEP #50-Tim Visel - Connecticut Saltwater Reports ( CT Saltwater Reports ) - A Community Built for Connecticut Fisherman.

BlueChip

Storms, Barrier Cuts and Shore Fisheries
IMEP #50
Habitat Information for Fishers and Fishery Area Managers
Understanding Science Through History

(IMEP Habitat History Newsletters can be found indexed by date on
The Blue Crab.Info™ website: Fishing, Eeling and Oystering thread
And Connecticut Fish Talk.com Salt Water Reports)

Tim Visel, The Sound School, New Haven, CT
February 25, 2015

Introduction
In 2007, as part of an effort to introduce the concept of habitat energy influencing shellfish abundance to the Long Island Sound Study, I looked at two New England examples, one part of the effort to control mosquitoes. I had seen one in Wellfleet, Massachusetts (1982) a dike across the Herring River, very similar to the dam across Holly Pond (CT). The other example was the North River of Situate and Marshfield, Massachusetts. In the final analysis there was more information about soft shell clams and storm energy connected to the North River example.
The Portland Gale of 1898 had closed the old inlet of the North River isolating the Humarock section of Situate to Marshfield, (see MHC Reconnaissance Survey 1981, US National Park Services, Dept of Interior, Massachusetts Historical Commission). The “new” inlet at the confluence of the South and North Rivers was about a mile to the north of its old mouth. It was this event (energy) which caused an influx of sand over the marsh which stimulated a dramatic increase in soft shell clams. It was this dramatic change in habitat conditions that Professor A.D. Mead of Brown University described in the 1906 Shoreline Times article. This larger article was developed for April, 2008 Habitat Restoration Initiative Committee meeting. A more recent article describes tidal surges and storms deposition sand (termed Paleotempestology) in much the same way. Jeff Donnelly and Rick Iedere have “reconstituted a history of intense hurricanes study the east coast from New Jersey to Maine and reported “over wash depositing.” An additional paper titled “Calibrating a Sedimentary Record of Over Wash From Southeastern New England Using Modeled Historic Hurricane Surges” is also found in Marine Geology 25-(2010) p 127-139.
The March 2010 paper described the Great Rhode Island Hard Clam Sets of 1939-1940 and 1951-1952 (mostly in Narragansett Bay). Theses strong hurricanes occurred during a much colder period destroying many of the oyster production beds (leased average) in upper Narragansett Bay. The quahog sets on these storm changed habitats are linked to the Great Quahog sets that would soon cause a “jump” in the Rhode Island Hard Clam (Quahog) landing statistics. It is now thought that storm “energy” had introduced alkaline waters into a shelly mixture while rinsing bottoms of accumulated organics. The resulting “washed” soils – in a shelly slightly higher pH is linked to better setting habitat quality and years later increased Quahog populations.
The third paper introduces habitat associations sustained by energy (oyster shell clam seed and winter flounder). In this case, it was the energy provided by an inshore trawler and referencing the clearing vegetation action of the doors, legs and chain sweep. This account is consistent with accounts from former inshore winter flounder fishers who operated hand hauled trawls on the Cape. (Phil Schwind, Cape Cod, Salt Ponds accounts) and Great South Bay, New York, and southern Rhode Island Salt Ponds (Winter Flounder in Rhode Island Coastal Ponds – Richard Crawford 1990) in these situations vegetation soon covered and changed habitat profiles.

I think the most challenging aspect of this paper is that fish move they can react to temperature and habitat conditions, and that winter flounder both avoid or seek out specific habitat conditions. Fishers for centuries have followed the fish, as fish can move when faced with changing habitat conditions as the warming waters in Narragansett Bay in the 1990s illustrated with winter flounder.

Introduction for HRI Papers

These three short papers try to describe the aspects of manmade and natural soil cultivation upon estuarine habitats. As mentioned in previous IMEP newsletters, harvest energy at times sustained shellfish habitats, the lifting, scratching and washing oyster shell bases for oyster sets, the digging, turning and “opening’ sub tidal soils for soft shell clams “steamers” but nothing would compare to the impacts of the 1958 introduction of the hydraulic quahog (hard shell) clam dredge in New Bedford. Here is perhaps the first mention of this practice of improving marine soils for the hard clam Mercenaria-mercenaria.
I was exposed to some of these accounts in a series of small boat fishing gear workshops held during the 1980s and located then at the Wickford Campus of the University of Rhode Island’s two year Fisheries and Marine Technology Associates Degree programs). They were conducted in cooperation with Rhode Island Sea Grant and Office of Continuing Education. This was 1980-81 and I learned about broken shell hash improving Quahog bottoms also mentioned in some Cape Cod reports. The introduction of hydraulics replaced the New Bedford style rocking chair “dry” dredge which had a high catch mortality (many broken clams) which was just shoveled overboard, in time these areas caught and held many more quahog seed than any other areas. According to workshop participants these areas were the ones they “worked” several years before and now had incredible “sets”, the other areas in foul (I suspect) had little set or nothing. My first experience with hydraulics was with Mr. Frank Dolan of Guilford, CT in 1970s- very much the same result and has been included in a NOAA Technical Memorandum NMPS-NE-220 titled “Review of the Ecological Effects of Dredging in the Cultivation and Harvesting of Molluscan Shellfish” and gives a much more detailed explanation that I can provide here.

Harvest “energy or work has been overlooked habitat wise with an obvious bias against it. Many of our current coastal area management policies for instance tend to prevent or discourage bottom disturbance. The facts around bottom disturbance are that it is a habitat sustaining or successional activity (IMEP Newsletter 46 and 48.) Natural bottom disturbances have been a part of coastal ecology since before the first shellfish harvests.

In the early 1970s Connecticut had large areas now closed to shellfishing because of bacteria. This had happened before during the 1880-1920 period in New Haven harbor. As the colder and stormier offered (1940s, 1950s, 1960s) bacteria levels were largely constant, or even declined. In the 1970s, warmer waters had returned and bacteria counts increased and now combined with bacteria from “street water” (called “runoff” today). Shellfish closures happened. Posting notices went up, and shellfish activities needed to cease. All at once, for these once popular shellfishing areas had their harvest energy (work) removed. Shellfish habitats now begin successional events, similar to the Garvin farm fields in IMEP #44. They were “let go” to “natural” conditions. However, these natural conditions now had the increase of trees (and a leaf burning ban) leaves street water and the application of winter sand. Strong rains washed a slurry of organics, pet wastes, water fowl wastes into increasing warm “often hot” inshore waters. Bacteria counts continued to climb and so did the areas closed to shellfishing. [Dairy farmers also experienced temperature/bacterial problems. In the 1870s and early 1880s, milk was left in these tall handle metal cans for pickup or sold. In the 1890s; this practice fostered diseases and would lead to milk pasteurization. In the high heat bacteria thrived in the milk and sealed from air putrefied so badly that milk caps removed produced “foul airs” that at times overcame creamery staffs (Report of the Connecticut Board of Agriculture). In time, keeping the milk cool then refrigerated and finally pasteurization (IMEP #4 Cool

solved this problem.]
In time these once productive shellfish habitats succeeded to soft, black and at times “foul smelling’ areas. The shellfish sets declined, thanks to sulfuric acid washes now associated with these high heat organic deposits. Millions of dollars of shellfish once destined for harvest now perished as their habitats succeeded. The energy that was needed to sustain these shellfish habitats was now gone.

The bottom disturbance discussion in coastal areas will continue for some time, but imagine farmers, who could not cultivate, nor rake leaves nor disturbs the soil and it gives you an idea on how these shellfish habitats “failed” when harvest energy ceased. The same thing happens on land also with similar discussions only it is called the law of habitat succession. In the marine environment habitat succession also happens it’s just called poorly descriptive term of “dynamic equilibrium” and part of the bias around bottom disturbance that is frequently negative which itself is “unnatural.”

In New England many of the largest shellfish production events followed tremendous storms, which are the equivalent to forest fires. Some may not like them, but it is natural to have them, that are why shellfishers historically called that working the bottom with more modest energy producing events – beneficial.

I respond to all emails at tim.visel@new-haven.k12.ct.us

Project Finfish – Monitoring Oyster Shell Habitats
For Clams & Winter Flounder
The Great Rhode Island Clam Sets of 1939-1940-1951-1952
Discussions with Quahog Skiff Fishermen of Narragansett Bay
Oyster Shell Clam Seed and Flounder Habitat Associations
In Rhode Island
March 2010
Timothy C. Visel
EPA/DEP LISS Habitat Restoration Committee

This paper was presented in the spring of 2010 but does not represent the viewpoint of the EPA/DEP Long Island Sound Study. It is the viewpoint of Tim Visel a committee member but in no way represents the opinion or consensus of the Habitat Restoration Committee or the Long Island Sound Study.

I respond to all emails at tim.visel@new-haven.k12.ct.us

For decades the quahog clam bull-rakers and oyster companies in the Upper Narragansett Bay led at best an uneasy coexistence. Shortly after Connecticut oyster companies secured grow out acreage for seed oysters to mature there (1895), a conflict ensued. First and foremost, it removed ground from the free and common fisheries and secondly, it prevented quahog harvesting on leased beds which caught a natural clam set. These conditions would come to open arguments in the 1940’s.

Earlier, by 1900, most of Rhode Island’s seed oyster river producing areas except for a very few had been ruined – excess silt from land – best management practices would need another century for these watersheds. Those involved in oyster culture often now looked to the “seed oyster state,” Connecticut, for seed oysters. The growth and quality was fantastic with culture of seed oysters in Narragansett Bay and within a decade the Connecticut oyster companies themselves would be in Rhode Island. The huge amounts of seed oysters needed large grow out grounds and outside of three Connecticut harbors, Norwalk, Bridgeport and New Haven, grow out ground in Connecticut was painfully scarce. The relatively open eastern Connecticut coastline invited storm disasters and made industry expansion difficult. Reports from Rhode Island however, told of high yields, great quality oysters and thousands of protected acres. But while the Upper Narragansett Bay provided area for oyster culture growth, its softer muck bottoms had to be hardened with gravel sand and of course, shell. Large scale and at times massive habitat mitigation occurred as soft bottoms was made firm from shelling, making it suitable to cultivate oysters. The oyster companies from Connecticut believed that by investment and work, they could make the habitat suitable for oyster culture.

This practice of firming bottoms from 1890 to 1910 occurred in a period of relatively few severe storm or hurricanes. It was a period of increasing heat and few strong storms. However, by the late 1920s and 1930s this was not the case, it now become colder. A series of hurricanes hit or came close to New England and winter storm intensity increased, after which, some of the firm beds became soft. It was just too expensive to harden them again so they were abandoned. Some oysters survived and occasionally boats would be sent out to clean up shells or what was left, and according to local stories, boats started to dredge up tremendous quantities of small quahog seed and by 1945 clams were everywhere. So when the clammer’s production went up and prices fell; so much so that a strike happened in support of higher landing prices. The great sets of 1939-40 and 1951-52 would cause a spike in hard shell clam production in Rhode Island that would be talked about for decades.
What really irked the bull-rakers was that they had to pay oyster companies a royalty on every bushel of clams they harvested from oyster beds that were long abandoned for a clam set that was natural. And they were absolutely correct. This practice would leave a bitter taste and for 70 years would influence aquaculture practices/ aquaculture acceptance in Rhode Island. An uneasy existence was to put it best as the oyster industry sought to police its leases and bull-rakers sought to harvest natural growth clams.

Then 1950 happened and Hurricanes Dog and Easy dealt the remaining Rhode Island oyster houses a final death blow, delivering more energy to the created habitats which “failed” and with it the oyster business which did not recover. What did recover were heavy sets of hard clams on these shelled areas. Energy had reversed the hardening process and mixed remnant shells into bottom substrates- the sets following major storms sometimes 2 to 3 years later were tremendous. They would become known as the “great sets.” Some of the best sets were Bristol Neck/Ferry, Warren Neck and Rumstick Neck Sets.

Several of the hard clam harvesters (bull-rakers) from Wickford in 1980 had experiences in the upper bay around acreage formerly operated by the Warren Oyster Company and led to some further discussions over the next few months. My study at the time was focusing upon winter flounder as I will still conducting inshore fishing gear technology workshops for Rhode Island Continuing Education. Some workshops were cosponsored by Rhode Island Sea Grant at the Wickford Fisheries School. This provided an opportunity to meet with and review accounts with local clammers. The more we talked -- one fishermen told what was to become a very familiar story – yes, flounder were over the oyster beds and bull -rakers knew that they would occasional “tine” one. It seems that as soon as the “oyster companies” we discussed long ago feelings soon resurfaced. [It’s important to note that several Connecticut oyster companies came to Rhode Island leased large areas of the upper bay displacing the local Rhode Island bull rakers, although it was 80 years ago the mention of Connecticut oysters companies evoked at times a very negative response.] When upper Narragansett Bay oyster firms started putting out shell and small seed oysters on top; they noticed two things, a dramatic increase in winter flounder and also great sets of quahogs. Eventually conflicts arose from bull rakers raking oysters into piles and digging the hard-shell clams that had set underneath the shells. The reasoning was that the oysters were in the way, and clammers couldn’t land the oysters legally anyway. The conflict was the oyster companies were less than pleased with immense heaps/piles of seed oysters every morning and would spend time each day re-spreading them. The quahog oyster conflict took on a nighttime activity except with the Blount family and arrangements were made with clammers to harvest what was underneath after the oysters were harvested. Unfortunately that agreement was unique and even today, this conflict is confused with illegal oystering according to these Wickford fishermen, it was not about the oystering, and it was about gaining access to the clams (quahogs) underneath the oysters.

A missed opportunity for poly-culture and even though these oyster companies had long ceased operations; the oyster shell/clam set association was still active. These old “relic” oyster shells still provided a modified habitat that suggested better clam sets. At later workshops the topic of aquaculture would come up and being from Connecticut I had more of a positive attitude, but during a December workshop, it was mentioned that perhaps I would like to swim the harbor if I continued to expound upon the positive aspects of aquaculture. I declined to continue the conversation, and with it the opportunity to pursue this oyster shell /hard clam habitat association was postponed.

This habitat association had been mentioned to me before by some of the Connecticut oyster growers I would talk to. They all agreed that the placing of oyster shell seemed to facilitate quahog sets. When oystering if quantities of hard clams started to come up in the dredges, they figured they were on the edge of the bed and soon oysters would thin out and clams increased; it always happens that way. George McNeil, a former owner/operator of McNeil Oyster Company, would comment that sometimes oyster dredges would fill to the brim with “seed clams” and they would be packed in barrels and sent to the Cape Cod for grow out. To my knowledge none of the Connecticut oyster companies saved and planted the clam seed, but an active seed clam fishery existed between Cape Cod and Connecticut for decades. Some areas in Connecticut caught heavy clam sets every year and would overcrowd each other. When oystering was slow in the summer, some oyster companies would harvest seed clams. When hydraulics (Dredge) was introduced in Connecticut, oyster companies that had survived knew exactly the locations of large hard shell clam populations.

Does working the bottom sustain clam habitats and did shell planting activities enhance habitat for winter flounder?

Many researchers have determined by examining the gut cavity contents of winter flounder that shellfish forms a significant part of adult winter flounder diet, mostly soft clams. It’s not surprising that when coastal coves froze-- like Beebe Cove in Groton Connecticut --that a productive winter flounder spear fishery existed through the ice; the most productive places reporting were over soft shell clam beds. I can still remember that in the early 1960s you could buy a white container of frozen soft-shell clam “necks” that was the preferred flounder bait back then. Today steamers are much more valued as food than bait. Clammers also noticed an increase in winter flounder living amongst the oyster shells. Structure was provided by the planted shell and created voids perhaps hiding places or cover and certainly contained small worms and crabs and the clams upon which to feed. I speculate that at the end of the day, all acreage combined in New York (Long Island), Connecticut and Rhode Island that had shell placed on it has to be one of the largest habitat creation (reef projects) in perhaps, the country. The habitat could have helped winter flounder also, and when I worked on the Quinnipiac, the dredge harvesting barge of Long Island Oyster Farms (1972), I saw thousands of juvenile winter flounder come up on deck. A conversation with J.R. Nelson, former manager of Long Island Oyster Farms confirmed the habitat association. He felt that the placement of cultch shell had greatly expanded suitable habitat for small winter flounder an association that would be echoed by shell fishermen and winter flounder fishermen countless times.

Hardened Oyster Bottoms

Oyster companies would use various substances to firm up soft bottoms, shell, pea gravel, cobblestone and even coal ash/clinkers. Reports continue to include brick making waste and chips from construction if stone or crushed block buildings-- anything that could harden the bottom and support a layer of oysters. But what made it soft in the first place would come back to haunt these efforts. What was soft before was soft for a reason, a relative lack of energy and a flocculent setting area for terrestrial organic material to mix with salt water. Rivers carried tremendous silt loads and some rivers quickly filled after heavy rains. Suspended solids settled on the oyster beds which needed to be “mowed” similar to maintaining a lawn today, but instead of mowing grass, you were flipping shells and not raking leaves, but washing off silt.

The association of winter flounder on these habitats is created and not natural. This habitat needed constant low energy to be sustained. It would also be subject to energy events such as hurricanes. Although history of the oyster industry frequently included storm damage the 1900 to 1920 was relatively quiet, (1938) hurricane was the worst since the 1815 storm. That is not to say damage wasn’t done to production oyster beds, it wasn’t as devastating and inconsistent like a spring frost on an apple orchard in bloom – bad things could always happen. But 1938 was different, it was a huge energy event, burying oyster beds completely, fresh water killing others and redistributing hardened beds, breaking gravel layers to the softer bottoms underneath or mixing sand/silt and shell on production beds. For the oyster companies, the event was a disaster for the hard clam fishery; its habitat clock would now be reset. The great quahog sets were on the way in the now cultivated shell/soil mixture.

Oysters in heavy currents can roll; even “chips” (shell fragments) can slide in strong currents. Every tidal creek in Connecticut at the mouth has oyster shells that rolled out to the Sound, and they do not roll back in. Some production oyster beds were depleted when oysters literally washed off the hardened bed and slipped into ooze and suffocated. This was especially prevalent on the created hard bottom habitats of upper Narragansett Bay. Rivers carried enormous quantities of silt and dead leaves from heavy rains and covered planted beds. But this entire bottom disturbance had some noticeable impacts, a growing winter flounder population and natural sets of quahogs under shells – especially these areas that had new bottoms or new sand and then covered with seed oysters. Hundreds of soft bottom acres had been changed to hard bottoms by the oyster companies. With what we know today, that isn’t really that surprising—that young winter flounder seek out shelly bottoms or that quahogs set and grow best in large grain size sandy sediments mixed with shells is well known. Fishermen for centuries have related the impacts of low energy in the positive impacts of working the bottom. This has been detailed in many Rhode Island reports. (Rhode Island Report of Inland Fisheries, State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations; Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Inland Fisheries – Made to the General Assembly at its January Session, 1906, Providence, RI 1906, page 105).

A century ago, oyster companies here in Connecticut noticed the same impacts when they recovered seed oysters for movement to deeper grow-out beds. The quahogs living underneath them were hard to miss. Few operations, however, capitalized on this “double crop.” The winter flounder, however, that came up in oyster dredges were given to crew (George McNeil personal communication), and they also were hard to miss large firm flounder living over the oyster beds. At one time, Eastern Connecticut supported a fyke net fishery in the 1880s and the best place to set them was “among the shells”. Hard sandy bottoms that contained relic quahog and steamer shell hash were some of the best to place your flounder fykes (eelgrass and soft bottom habitats were avoided). Later, seed oyster and hard clam tongers noticed this flounder shellfish habitat association and consistently report tonging flounder with the tong heads themselves. Flounder spear fisheries in or near shellfish beds especially among soft shells (steamers) was a well known practice in coves along the Connecticut coast. Even today, local antique shops along our coast have old flounder spears (many hand wrought blacksmith) for sale. These spear fisheries were conducted in the same areas that contained shellfish. In fact, the first reported flounder/oyster habitat association dates from 1375 as a group of English oyster growers complained that a primitive device many refer to it as the first beam trawl was catching flounder (plaice) over their production oyster beds.

Life Cycles and Energy Events

Hard shell clams can live to be in excess of 80 years, but produce spawn every year. It is believed that this accounts for some of the heaviest sets of hard shell clams after severe storms – they may spawn every year, but the largest sets such as those in Rhode Island only occur 3 to 4 times in a century. This is when habitat conditions may favor them relatively cold and estuarine soils free of organic matter. The long life span therefore, ensures continuity of the species, as compared to “habitat extinction events” of much shorter living species such as the bay scallop in coves and salt ponds.

The rapid growth of the aquaculture oyster industry in Rhode Island occurred during a period of relatively few storms and warmer temperatures (1880-1920). Between 1901 and 1930, only a few large storms occurred then, and it was a period of minimal coastal energy events. Oysters flourished and so did winter flounder reaching similar high points years after oyster peaks. Between 1931 and 1961 has storm energy increased dramatically 20 named hurricanes happened during this 30 year period, while only 3 the previous 3 decades. Oysters declined, and hard shell clam sets increased. Two large hard shell clam sets. 1939 – 1940 and 1951 -1952 were after the most severe hurricanes. The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 and 1950 hurricane season which had several hit the New England area were some of the most severe energy event periods. It wasn’t instant, the hurricanes fishermen believed “turned the bottom”, changing soil structures, but perhaps modifying pH roughing the surface of the bottom creating relief eddies currents and even reducing predators. It may be that the bottom itself needed time to restructure and stabilize, but at some point a year or two later (in periods of larval abundance) would have the capacity to sustain enormous bay wide quahog sets and this appears to be the case for two distinct periods in Rhode Island shellfish history 2 to 3 years after the 1938 and two to three years after the powerful 1950 hurricane season.
Fishermen especially on Cape Cod had had also seen large sets of quahogs occur after heavy storms or barrier beach inlet breaks. After a long period of reduced coastal energy, quahog productivity generally declined as bottoms turned softer. Areas with hand and bull-rakers sustained frequent sets and these areas with oyster shell or shell fragments caught better sets than smooth mud. The continued input of low energy activity “harvest energy” tends to prolong habitat suitability and gives rise to the constant and continual comments by shell-fishermen that it is advantageous to “work the bottom.” It is positive, up to a certain point for clams especially the hard-shell. The introduction of hydraulic hard clam harvesting opened a new chapter in Connecticut’s shellfish history. For the first time, shell fishermen had the equipment that resembled the hurricane marine soil cultivation aspects. They were in fact, able to cultivate marine soils and by doing so, modified soil structure and pH. The harvest of hard shell clams was no longer dependent upon storms for the great sets. Soil cultivation had reached farmers of the sea as well.

EPA/DEP LISS Habitat Restoration Committee
Winter Flounder Inshore Trawl Net Fisheries and Hard Clam
Fishery of Wickford Rhode Island
Timothy C. Visel, The Sound School
October 20, 2010

Wickford Harbor, Rhode Island 1980
Habitat Quantity Versus Quality
Can we identify specific habitat indicators for winter flounder?

This paper was presented in the fall of 2010 but does not represent the viewpoint of the EPA/DEP Long Island Sound Study. It is the viewpoint of Tim Visel a committee member but in no way represents the opinion or consensus of the Habitat Restoration Committee or the Long Island Sound Study. I respond to all emails at tim.visel@new-haven.k12.ct.us

I can remember an account of a trawl fisherman in Wickford Rhode Island (1980) who dragged a small trawl net for flounder over abandoned oyster beds from the last century. He told me we have miles of mud bottom here in Narragansett Bay, but here over the oyster beds this is where the flounder are, if you will find the oyster shells you find the flounder. That statement caught my attention as an occasion hand dredged winter flounder would break the surface in small oyster dredges.

I would go out with him and his son several times and tow a trawl over the old Wickford Shellfish Company oyster beds – the old oysters houses were still operating marinas then on the west side of the Wickford Harbor. We would catch many large doormat winter flounder, he caught the largest winter flounder I would see caught in the bay. He had a method, and described it to me, he found this spot by accident, and kept seaweed from covering it, the trick it seemed was he would keep the bottom clean, so the first few tows he had a chain between the doors (devices to keep the trawl net deployed on the bottom) he would tow this chain over the bottom – freeing the shells of weed and other bottom debris. After a few tows he would take off the chain and deploy the net and caught very large firm winter flounder and very few small ones, he really didn’t fill the cod end, short tows, he didn’t want to kill the small ones, and very few were.

I cultivate them, he remarked that dragging, cleaned up the bottom, flip the shells exposed food they like and I come in and catch them. To be on board the vessel with a camera I didn’t have to believe him – I had the pictures. One time after a big storm he recalled a tremendous amount of kelp and eelgrass covered the shells and it took several days to get the “crap off” and back to the shells beneath soon after the flounder returned. He could have towed over different areas, but he would be back to the long tows and here he could get bigger winter flounder in less time with less work over the shells. “Lots of mud bottom but only a few pieces are really worth anything.” To him cultivating a garden was the same here, I’m cultivating the bottom and in the process catching fish. He also farmed so this seemed like a logical marine conclusion. Before long another inshore fishery would notice this, several quahog bullrakers. Wickford, Rhode Island still had about a dozen traditional Rhode Island quahog skiffs tied up across from Wickford Shipyard. I would watch them go out and also a mussel boat then operated by a Mr. Wilcox. They harvested quahogs (mercenaria) and sold them to shellfish company across the harbor from Wickford shipyard.

Paul Casey was the manager of Wickford Shipyard then and one afternoon he came into Noah Clark’s shellfish business. One of the bullrakers had nearly sunk at his dock, he loaded up with hard clams (quahogs) and needed the truck. Curious I slipped out of the office and went over to look, the skiff was still listing and unloading was in process. A few fishermen gathered around admiring the large catch. Within a few days word was out the quahogs were caught in the “trawl tow” and under the oyster shells were the hard shell clams. A few days later it was hard for my friend to set in with the trawl and a competition ensured for who was going to catch what, bullrakers for the hard clams or my friend for the winter flounder. No one doubted the value of the oyster shell habitat as each “cropped” the species associated with it.

Several of the bullrakers were excited by “the find” and others from the area had joined in. I would have the opportunity to talk to them coming into the dock in the afternoon. I was working at the URI Dept of Fisheries for an international program at the time so I would see them in the dock. It took a while but eventually I learned more than others (they are much a closed group) what helped was I had some old shellfish tags from oystering in CT – the tags that I would attach to burlap bags of oysters. In the shellfish world a shellfish tag is much better than a business card, it’s a passport and opens conversations much quicker.

The excitement was the discovery of an old oyster bed – first of course discovered by the small dragger looking for winter flounder. A couple of shell fishermen told similar stories – the clams and oyster shells were mixed and that old oyster beds were often the best place to clam and in fact fish and winter flounder. Old oyster beds were often prized in the Upper Bay - but ones that were too thick with oyster shells were not the best, light coverings like the one off of Wickford were described as best and bullrakers came up 50% clams and 50% old oyster shell. They would occasionally “tine” a winter flounder on a bullrake so they knew they were underneath and thought they were consuming worms and crabs dislodged by the clam raking action. All those I talked to felt that working the bottom was beneficial but also that when the large crop of Littlenecks were harvested 90% were just legal – they would leave it alone to “rebuild” or reset. It became somewhat problematic as the inshore trawler now had to wait to set in on any given day two or three bullrakers were working in the same area. They worked it out however and for several months each would arrive with their catch, the winter flounder and littleneck clams, the old oyster shells were returned over the old bed, tossed turned and clean each valued them being placed back on the bottom.

I would come across this shellfish/flounder habitat association many times, as with hard shell clams in New York especially in the Great South Bay, soft shell clams in Niantic Bay and oysters in almost every tidal creek and river containing oysters here in CT.
In time, I began to realize it was more than coincidence the reports from Cape Cod, Rhode Island, New York and CT all pointed to recreational flounder fishermen fishing in or near shellfish populations, shell fishermen also all confirmed their presence from 1978 on I would link both to a “healthy winter flounder habitat.” This was first introduced to me by John Baker former Aquaculture Division Chief here in Connecticut (1973 to 1981). Discussions at that time included the habitat creation aspect as thousands of acres of bay bottoms were once planted with seed oysters or set on shell.

By 1983, I began to sense something was wrong with our winter flounder fisheries. The first decade of my career was spent trying to catch more flounder and the next two decades was spent trying to determine if we can make more flounder and its habitat and I think we can. I’m convinced of that in 2010 and introduced the concept of habitat failure as a way to introduce habitat restoration. In many areas that once had shellfishing are closed from high bacteria counts, the energy that once had provided a cleaning cultivation process was now gone. They quickly became soft and organic debris covered them. (Then in shallow areas waters became hot). For the flounder the habitat failed to provide them when they required cover, food and spawning area. I think this is why we saw so many small flounder (2 inch to 3 inch) leave the estuaries and become mixed in with the larger deeper water flounder populations. The inshore habitat that they needed had turned against them – it failed to provide the critical habitat during part of their life cycle, the most important one the first.

A unique biological feature, the ability to utilize a second respiratory oxygen pathway – its skin provided a clue that flounder especially small ones needed to stay in the tidal water habitats. Only when environmental conditions become too harsh or unfavorably did small winter flounder flee these habitats. By doing so they left preferential feeding and growing habitats and now faced new predator/prey relationships – thus a habitat failure soon became a fishery failure.

Soft Shell Clam Habitat Creation and Associated
Population

Expansion Following Significant Marine Soil
Cultivation/Disturbances

LIS – EPA HRI Sub- Committee on Shellfish
T. Visel April 21, 2008

A Review of Three Case Histories Following The Gale
of 1898

This paper was presented in the spring 2008 but does not represent the viewpoint of the EPA/DEP Long Island Sound Study. It is the viewpoint of Tim Visel a committee member but in no way represents the opinion or consensus of the Habitat Restoration Committee or the Long Island Sound Study.

I respond to all emails at tim.visel@new-haven.k12.ct.us

Abstract: New England communities have often experienced periodic production fluctuations of the soft shell clam, Mya arenaria. Explanations for such production fluctuations include disease, pollution, loss of habitat, over harvesting, environmental constraints, and predator/prey relationships. While any of the above explanations have site specific merit a look at three fisheries histories provides a more natural system explanation. Large increases in populations appear to be linked to a large natural
“habitat creation” event. The soft shell clam is often an opportunistic colonizer of near shore estuarine soils. As habitat is created, other habitats may be lost or gradually
become unproductive. Traditional shellfish management and restoration efforts need to consider the impact of storm related significant habitat creation events. Losses of
productivity may result naturally from such events while creating new habitats in other areas. Habitat creation (large scale) therefore could be largely beyond the control
of municipal shellfish management agencies.

Within the last century, three New England communities have experienced tremendous changes in soft shell productivity. They include Clinton, CT located in the middle of the state just west of the Connecticut River, Chatham, Mass located at the south east end of Cape Cod opposite Nantucket Island and lastly Marshfield, Massachusetts at the confluence of the North and South Rivers, south of Boston. All three communities experienced dramatic changes in production/productivity for soft shell clams between 1900 and 1910. After reviewing fishery history records and reports some common factors have emerged, all three experienced a barrier beach inlet in which a new split
allowed dramatic changes in the soil characteristics of sub tidal habitats. The changes in the barrier beach ecology occurred after a very powerful storm in 1898, the so called
“Portland Gale” which hit New England in late November of that year.

Within 5 years, all three communities would record enormous soft shell population increases adjacent to the “new” barrier beach inlets. This paper reviews two basic
questions, the impact from storms on estuarine ecology and secondly if such events prepared “marine soils” for sets of the soft shell clams. Written reports, newspaper articles
and US Fish Commission accounts appear to confirm that these circumstances were not isolated. Marine soil cultivation both natural and manmade facilitated the growth and setting of soft shell clams. After 1924 the climate turned colder and these soft shell clam experiments gradually disappeared from historical shellfish reports.

Keywords: cultivation of marine soils – soft shell clams – Mya arenaria habitat creation, population fluctuations related to physical soil changes, fisheries histories, shellfish management policies for municipal shellfish commissions.

Introduction

“The Shellfishery (soft shell) used to be in two areas (1900’s) Pleasant Bay and Monomoy. They would find the clams near new cuts on the sand flats. It would be good for a few years and then die out. It was like these clam beds were born as they would suddenly appear. We thought it was from the new sand from the cut but no one could say for certain.”

Comments from John Hammond – retired commercial oyster grower Chatham Mass during the December 1982 interview “T. Visel personal communication.”

“M. L. Blaisdell said he had experimented with a spot of mud flat about 30 feet square. He had sprinkled such a spot with sand to the depth of about two and one- half inches and in a short time clam holes were found so numerous that he could hardly put his fingers between them. One man he knew of had dug twenty bushels from the tract and another as many more.”

Excerpt from a Clinton Recorder Newspaper Article Clinton, CT Friday, January 23, 1903 “To Propagate Shellfish” about dense concentrations of soft shell clams in Clinton Harbor
Connecticut. The dense concentrations occurred east of the barrier beach inlet locally called the “Dardanelles.”

“Previous to 1898 no clams were ever dug in the North River (Marshfield Mass), but in the great storm of that year (1898) when the City of Portland (steamship) was lost, the
river cut a new deep mouth through the beach, giving free access to the tide, which soon destroyed the edible grasses of the marshes and made them in a large part dead flats.
Clams began growing in large quantities and thousands of bushels have been dug and carried away each year.”

Part of an account by Professor A. D. Mead of Brown University of a new soft shell clam population described in a 1906 Shoreline Times Article “Successful Clam Culture.”
Each of the above refers to a location in which soft shell clams exhibited rapid population increases following a storm event.

The Shoreline Times – March 8, 1906 Successful Clam Culture Constantly Growing Commercial Pursuit

“A Bit of Clinton History and Some Interesting Statistics of the Work in the Pine Tree States”

On January 21, 1903 a special town meeting was held here to act on the resolution petitioning the general assembly to grant to the town of Clinton the privilege of leasing
certain mud flats in the harbor which was absolutely unproductive of either clams or oysters, to citizens of the town with a view to propagating long clams {mya – “steamers”}. The resolution proposed to lease to citizens of the town one acre tracks at $10 per year with privilege of renewal, these tracts not to be sublets. It was these mud flats which were explained to be too soft for successful clam culture with sand from the harbor bar nearby. A similar experiment in modern clam culture carried on by M. L. Blaisdell here on a limited area had proved very successful. The motion instructing the representative to
introduce the resolution was carried after considerable discussion 84 to 24.

On March 3rd a hearing was granted by the committee of fisheries and game and the resolution was favorably reported and later passed the senate. Determined opposition was met within the house by the person of the representative from Guilford, who presented to the members that this was merely the entering wedge to the passing of a “god given right of the people along the shore” to private ownership which in view of the utter bareness of this harbor mud of every form of absence in life was about as far from the fact as the
moon from the earth.

However the resolution was defeated but this matter of scientific clam culture is growing every day and particular forest and stream and atlas fish culturist as well as the daily press are beginning to record its possibilities and triumphs. That something be done to repair the constant drain and rapidly growing scarcity “this god given right” in this vicinity is an evident as the succession of the seasons and the matter of propagating long clams here is not a dead issue by any means.

The following taken from the New London Day of late date shows to some extent what is being done along this line. The members of the Rhode Island Fish Commission were naturally elated when they learned recently that a large stock company capitalized at 300,000 had been organized in the State of Maine for the purpose of raising clams for the market in enormous quantities. This is the first corporation that has ever been established for such a purpose in the country, if not in the world and is a direct outcome of the experiments that have been carried on in this state. Unlike the majority of corporations, this company has been formed for the purpose of cultivating and propagating a food product, universally known and consumed by all people in all countries. The farms of the bivalve have crossed the ocean and although clam cultivation is a comparatively new industry, it is rapidly forging to the front and bids fair in a short time to take its place well up in the ranks of the great fish industries in this and foreign countries. The season unlike the oyster season not only supplies the market with a delicious and dainty food product throughout the year but ships hundreds of barrels daily to Europe and the continent, and the demand for both home and foreign consumption is rapidly increasing to such extent that clam culture today opens one of the greatest fields of its kind.

Until recent years, there has been no domestic clam culture, the supply of the market being relied upon from the original beds, but as the danger of exhausting the supply is plainly apparently, large plots have been leased from the fish and game commissioners of New York and other states, and beds have been planted occupying hundreds of acres, each acre at a most conservative estimate being valued $1,000. The value of the crop of last season for the State of New York was 110,000 with every prospect of a much greater growth and value.

Clam canning factories have recently opened another field for the industry thus making a further increase necessary and unless some other means of supply are immediately found, there will be few if any, of the popular shellfish left for consumption, clams having been brought to the brink of extermination.

Few people realize that the average cost of clams in the shell is from 1.50 to 2.00 per bushel, and with the supply diminishing and the cost increasing the clam will soon reach that state of food production whence it becomes a luxury.

Commissioner Nickerson of the State of Maine in a recent statement said “I am far more concerned about the clam industry than I am about the lobster, and measures must be adopted of the people of the state would save the enormous losses in the future.” The value of the sold in Maine after the year 1904 was approximately 285,600 of which nearly 70,000 cases were canned. In 1904 Maine had 24 canning factories worth 250,000 which sold 70,290 cases valued at 198,000. Thus some idea can be gained of the business which no doubt, many of our readers are unfamiliar with.

The company owns and controls 450 acres of clam flats situated on the {North River} Mass peculiarly adapted to the culture of clams. Previous to 1898 no clams were ever-dug in the North River, but in the great storm of that year (1898) when the City of Portland was lost, the river cut a new deep mouth through the beach, giving free access to the tide, which soon destroyed the edible grasses of the marshes and made them in a large part dead flats. Clams began growing in large quantities and thousands of bushels have been dug and carried away each year. Professor A. D. Meade, Ph.D. distinguished biologist, a member of the Rhode Island Fish Commission, and probably the best authority in the world on shellfish culture having conducted experiments there in. For seven years, has twice inspected these flats. Speaking of one place that he looked at said “the set there is thick enough to produce 3,000 bushels to the acre. The main thing is a suitable bottom and the best proof of a suitable bottom is this great abundance where the turf has been sufficiently removed to give them a change to come in.”

By proper turfing, grading, and planting it seems certain that the whole area owned by the company can be made immensely productive. The spat a float in the tides willing to a great extent, if not wholly supply the seed, and planting seed beds and young clams can easily supplement that if necessary. The plant once prepared, nothing remains but together, the crops, there is no sewage or other pollution in the river thus the quality will be of the best and command the highest market prices. The tides feed the clams; ice and frost cannot destroy them, and with the land and seeded it remains forever, and the cost of maintenance is nil. Harvesting for an eager market is the only expense.

Nature’s laboratory does all the rest. There is no other business of which this can be said. Experiments recorded in the published report of the Rhode Island Fish Commissioner show that while on some limited portion of their beds, production was at the rate of over 3,000 bushels to the acre, taking the whole of the tract under cultivation it was at the role of 1,750 bushels to the acre. Their experiments also showed that they attained
marketable size at two years of age.

Reproduction is granted by Joyce Mletschnig, Assoc. Editor
Shore Line Newspapers

Clinton Recorder
CLINTON, CONN., FIRDAY, JANUARY 23, 1903.
CLINTON, CONN., FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 1903 PRICE 3 CENTS
TO PROPOGATE SHELL FISH
Charter Reserving Tract of Harbor Desired

A special town meeting was held Wednesday evening pursuant to a call which read as follows: - Upon the petition of Lucius J. Stevens and twenty-four other legal voters and taxpayers of the town of Clinton requesting the selectmen to call a special town meeting for the purpose of taking action to petition to the Legislature of Connecticut to grant to the town of Clinton the right to lease all or part of the harbor for the purpose of the growth and culture of oysters and clams. In accordance with the above petition the legal voters are hereby notified and warned that a special meeting will be held on Wednesday evening, Jan. 21 at 7:30 p.m.

John A. Stanton was appointed moderator and Mark Smith clerk. Sturges G. Redfield offered a resolution which as finally amended reads as follows: - That our present representative at the Legislature be, and he is hereby instructed to present a bill before said Legislature authorizing the selectmen of the town of Clinton to lease to the citizens of said town the following section of Clinton harbor for this cultivation of long clams, (soft shell clams) said section to be the mud flats lying south of the main channel, bounded as follows: - Monthly by the south bank of the main channel. Easterly by a stone bound on the north and east end of Sandy Island, thence in a northerly direction by a straight line to south bank of channel. Southerly by Sandy Island. Westerly by a straight line drawn from the east end of the Dardanelles breakwater, in a northerly direction to the before mentioned channel bank.

Provided that all lessees shall be male electors of the town of Clinton and shall pay to the town treasurer a sum not exceeding ten dollars per acre, with the privilege of renewal at the end of each year. Also provided that no individual shall hold more than one acre of said mud flats and such individual shall not sub-lease any part of his plot to any other person or corporation. W.H. Stafford said he would suggest an amendment that no one could be allowed to become a lessee unless a resident of the town. Mr. Redfield said he would accept such amendment. Joseph H. Sperry asked if it was obligatory to make improvements or merely hold it after leasing an acre of this mud flat. Arthur M. Buell, who follows oystering and clamming a portion of the time for a livelihood, said he got his bread by the sweat of his brow and he wanted the privilege to continue to do so. He moved an adjournment. Not carried. S. G. Redfield said that by sprinkling a layer of sand over these mud flats clams would grow. He had written Congressman N. D. Sperry relative to the matter and had received from prominent shell fish expert report of clam culture in the vicinity of Essex, Mass., in which twenty-five acres of mud flat in two years time had been made to yield 2,500 bushels of clams where before there were next to none. The speaker said but little was being done toward the culture of clams. Professor Mead of Brown University had said that by strewing these mud flats with sand and small clams in a short time they could be made exceedingly profitable. Mr. Redfield said according to the U.S. coast survey the proposed tract contained about 75 acres, or only about one eighth of the harbor. The speaker closed with an earnest plea for the adoption of the resolution. William H. Kelsey suggested amending the resolution so as to limit lessees to legal voters of the town.

Captain L. J. Stevens said he had thought of this subject for quite a while. He found a change in the minds of many regarding the protection and propagation of shell fish. At the last session of the Legislature, a bill had been introduced putting the control of harbors along the state Sound coastline into the hands of the U.S. Fish Commission. Such a bill was coming up again, he understood on the best of authority and he thought even now it might be too late to get the proposed resolution recognized by the Legislature. If the town did not vote to lease he should favor the state taking control of the harbor.

Z. Silas Wellman said he was opposed to the resolution and thought it ought to be defeated. The oysters and clams were a God given heritage enjoyed by their forefathers and he believed it was best to so continue them. He called attention to the decision of the superior court in the Clinton oyster cases some years ago and said he did not believe the Legislature would grant the proposed charter. Arthur Buell said he would like to ask Mr. Redfield if he had ever been across the harbor at the point in question. The latter replied that he had not for some years.

Captain G. Ransom Buell said certain persons were working to steal what our forefathers gave us. “You can’t find a poor man that owns an acre of oyster ground. Go as far as Stony Creek or Branford and you will “find this is so.” The syndicates are buying up this ground and it won’t be three years before they will own this harbor.” S. Leander Stevens said he believed the resolution was opposed to the laws of the state. He was in favor of it, but if he understood it aright it gave the selectmen the control of the entire harbor. He believed first in finding out what the town could legally do, in other words –“where they were at.” Arthur Buell thought his grandchildren would not live long enough to sand over an acre of this flat. M.L. Blaisdell said he had experimented with a spot of mud flat about 30 feet square.

He had sprinkled such a spot with sand to the depth of about two and one-half inches and in a short time clam holes were found so numerous that he could hardly put his fingers between them. One man he knew of had dug twenty bushes from this tract and another as many more. S. Leander Stevens said no doubt Mr. Blaisdell was honest but he had not lived here as long as some of them. He had seen the day in 1879 when he could jump off the bank where Mr. Blaisdell had experimented and catch two and one-half bushels of clams in an hour and a half. Captain L. J. Stevens said if there were thirty applicants for ground the selectmen were obliged to have plans of the section drawn. William H. Kelsey said the meeting was called in the interest of the poor of this town that the poor man who went to the sea might have ten cents to buy a loaf of bread to feed his children before going to school. At present such a man barely managed to exist. He might get a peck of oysters one day or a bushel another. He was decidedly in favor of the bill. He expected opposition from these same men whom the bill was framed to benefit. Later Mr. Kelsey moved to amend the clause limiting lessees to legal voters to “legal male voters of the town,” etc.

Captain Stevens thought a committee should be appointed to go to Hartford and oppose the acquiring of harbor control by the Fish Commission. John H. Miller moved the appointing of such a committee. A.A. Snow thought that such action was illegal, not being in the call. A committee was appointed consisting of the selectmen together with S. G. Redfield, L. J. Stevens, William H. Kelsey and Attorney Charles A. Pelton. A vote was then taken on the resolution resulting in 113 votes being cast; yeas 84; nays 29. The resolution was accordingly adopted and the meeting adjourned.