WOOLWICH

Intent as an osprey eyeing its breakfast, Lori Benson fixed her gaze on the water rushing over the uppermost step of the Nequasset fish ladder. In a flash, the slim, dark body of an alewife flitted over the brim and was gone.

A volunteer with the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust, Benson signed up for the annual alewife run fish count, when the anadromous fish swim from the ocean to their spawning ground by Nequasset Lake.

Patience — and focus — is required of the counters, said Benson, who take two-hour slots, during which they are required to count for two, 10-minute intervals.

Last year, Benson, a biologist and member of the Winnegance alewife commission, said she volunteered five days a week. This year, she’s been out counting fish three or four days a week since the start of the run in early May.

This is the last time the alewives will run up the nearly 60-year-old ladder, which the Bath Water District plans to replace this summer in partnership with KELT and Woolwich.

“Normally you stand there, after a while you can hear them coming up,” said Benson. “The fins splashing — you’re looking at the top of the ladder, but you can hear them coming up behind you.”

On a recent Thursday morning, however, water poured over the dam from the spring rain, and the alewives slipped silently by in streaks the color of mud-flats and snow.

“It’s very peaceful out here,” said Benson. “I have had loons pop up next to me — you see ospreys and eagles, and I like talking to Steve down in the fish house.”

Steve Bodge, the current harvester, has been involved in the run for 56 years — since he was 11 years old. Herb Lilly Sr., Bodge’s stepfather, and then Herb Lilly Jr., his son, have overseen the alewife harvest in Woolwich for nearly six decades.

“At that point down there, the fish have two choices,” said Bill Potter, chairman of the Woolwich fish commission. “They can they can either go into the harvest area to the (right), or go up the fish ladder.”

Lobstermen come to the fish house in the morning to buy bushels of alewives from the harvester to use as bait.

“They have a dipper — a large net with a steel frame — and they dole them out in bushel baskets,” which contain approximately 120 fish each, said Potter.

“The harvest area is only open Thursday to Sunday — we have to shut it down Monday,” but the fish ladder is open seven days a week, he said.

“It’s very easy to overfish,” said Potter, “but the town has been a good steward of this run — this alewive run has been here for hundreds of years.

“The Native Americans used it, and even in the early town documents I’ve seen,” he added, “there were requirements that anyone who put a water-powered mill on the river here maintain passage for the fish.”

The five-member fish commission is responsible for maintaining the road and buildings by the fish house, and for selecting the harvester. The land is owned by the town of Woolwich, but the Bath Water District has an easement for the dam on the Nequasset and fish ladder.

And the ladder, “you can see is in serious need of repair,” said Potter. “It’s bandaged together now.”

Once the site of a mill, which was taken down in the 1920s, said Potter, the lumber was salvaged and used to build the fish house and adjacent smoke house, where Bodge prepares some of the catch for locals, who know alewives aren’t only good for bait.

“I salt them in barrels for a couple days,” said Bodge, “then put them out there and wash off the salt and scales. Then I hang them up out there for seven days,” he added, pointing to a smoke shack draped with goldenbrown, tan and pale white alewife underbellies.

“I sell them for 75 cents apiece, or $7.50 for 10. I usually put 10 on a string,” he said.

Some people like them fresh, said Potter, nudging resident Bob Turcotte, who had come over to buy a fresh string, to share his favorite recipe.

“I cut the heads off, boil them and skin them,” Turcotte said. “Then I take the meat off the backbone and run it through a food processor — that chops up all the little bones — and I make a basic white sauce and add the meat to the white sauce.

“I don’t put any salt in there because there’s enough salt in the fish,” he said, “and I put that on mashed potatoes or toast.”

This year, the run got off to a slow start, Bodge said.

“We had 80 bushels one day, but some days we used to get 100 to 150 bushels,” he said. “I sold 17 bushels this morning.”

The federal and state governments regulate the harvest, Potter said, and require the town to submit a harvest plan for approval and limit the number of harvesting days.

“A lot of fisheries are shut down because of a lack of resources,” said Potter. “Two years ago we harvested around 1,100 bushels — last year we harvested 700.

“Hopefully the ladder will change that,” he said.

“There’s a lot of interest in it but as far as an economic input to the town — that’s zero,” said Potter. “We get paid for the harvest, but we have put all of our money into refurbishing the buildings and maintaining the land.”

Ruth Indrick, the project coordinator for KELT’s fish count at Nequasset dam, said that in the three years the count has taken place, an average of 70 people have volunteered.

Alewives are not only a food source, but the fish population also helps manage the nutrient levels in Nequasset Lake, said Indrick.

“When you have a lot of nutrients in a lake, like nitrogen and phosphorus, it can cause algae to bloom,” said Indrick. “If you see a lake that is really green, that means it’s not healthy — the algae blocks the sunlight and uses up the oxygen as it starts to die.”

A favorite snack of birds and other fish, Indrick said a healthy alewife population is also a boon to commercial fishing as the alewives “act as a barrier to predators for the salmon coming out at the same time.”

But mostly for the volunteers, it’s about community involvement and enjoying the peacefulness of the Nequasset River, interrupted only by the cry of gulls and friendly chatter from the fish house.

“You look at the town seal and what do you see?” said Potter. “These buildings right here. It’s an important part of our culture and identity.”

rgargiulo@timesrecord.com

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