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Lake Herring
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This important food-fish, named by Le Sueur in honour of Petrus Artedi, the "Father of Ichthyology," the friend and associate of Linnaeus, and perhaps the ablest systematic zoologist of the 18th century, is found throughout the region of the Great Lakes, from Lake Memphremagog on the east to Lake Superior on the west, and northward into the Hudson Bay drainage, and to Labrador.
Throughout its range it is the most abundant member of the family. It is taken in enormous quantities each year, and in most of the lakes is the object of a special fishery. The quantity taken each year in the Great Lakes is greater than that of all other whitefishes combined, but in value of catch and in food value it does not equal the common whitefish. The species is most abundant in Lake Erie, while Lake Michigan ranks second in importance.
The lake herring has a large number of vernacular names. The most widely used are lake herring, or merely herring, and cisco, either of which is, in most places, distinctive. In Lake Ontario it is usually called cisco. The etymology of the word is in dispute. One assigned derivation is from a fish peddler named Cisco, who, about 1830, took the fish through the northern part of New York State and sold it to the farmers as "Cisco's herring." "Sisco" is merely a recent variation in the orthography. Other names for this fish in Lake Ontario are herring, blueback, greenback, blueback or greenback herring, and grayback or grayback herring. These different names are simply the fisherman's way of distinguishing individual variations in colour, sex, age or time of run. Usually the fishermen claim that the graybacks run in the spring, and that the spring or early summer is their spawning time. The greenbacks and bluebacks run in the late fall, and are regarded, very naturally, as a better fish than the graybacks. In Lakes Erie, St. Clair, Huron and Superior, as well as throughout Canada, this species is known as herring or lake herring. In Lake Michigan the names Michigan blueback and shore herring are sometimes heard. Unfortunately the name herring is also applied sometimes to other species.
The lake herring has the same general habits as the white-fish, but seems to be more widely disseminated during most parts of the year. During the summer and winter it is mainly restricted in Lake Erie to the deeper waters in the middle of the lake, in its eastern half, and along the northern shore east of Rondeau. From the deep-water region there are two great migrations into the shoaler and more changeable portions of the lake. In the spring, when the shoal waters become warmer, the fish emerge from their winter habitat and move shoreward and upon the edge of the platform, evidently in search of food. The volume of this migration is less than that of the fall run, and is more fluctuating and irregular. Their presence is generally first noticed in early April, and occasionally large lifts are made in the latter part of that month, though the best fishery is in May. Some are caught in June, but by the first of that month the bulk has left the United States coast for deeper water, although on the Canadian shore east of Pointe Pelee they remain through-out the summer. During the summer months the gillnet tugs from Cleveland and eastern ports find them in deep water well out in the lake, the best season off Erie, the principal fishing centre, being from July to September. The fall migration corresponds in a general way with that of the spring, though the incentive is different. Then large bodies of herring seek spawning beds on the platform, over which they become widely distributed. The distribution of their spawning ground on the platform is less restricted than those of the whitefish, and the herring are not confined to the reefs and rocky bottoms when discharging their eggs. There are doubtless important spawning grounds east of the platform, though their exact location has not been determined.
The spawning of the lake herring takes place in the fall, chiefly in November.
The average weight probably does not exceed a pound, and the maximum weight 2 pounds. It is usually caught in gillnets and pound-nets.