Buckeyes return, but too early to forecast run

The buckeyes are back.

A few fish returned as early as February to spawn but colder weather in March shut down the runs and the Buckeye Brook Coalition that keeps an eye on such things, and has done so for years, didn’t see it pick up until the end of April.

“It’s been another one of those years,” coalition vice president Paul Earnshaw said last week. “I don’t know what to make of it.”

The coalition has signed up 24 volunteer fish counters who record the brook temperature, height and fish as it flows under Warwick Avenue at the end of the K of C parking lot. The fish are counted – along with whether they are swimming up- or downstream – as they pass over a white plastic strip anchored in the streambed.

Earnshaw recalls one April day where his wife, Lori, counted 94 fish. Paul went to check it out and counted another 66 and then, on a visit shortly thereafter, they spotted another 40. “It was awesome,” he said.

But Earnshaw’s enthusiasm was short-lived. On subsequent visits – counters stay on station for a minimum of 10 minutes – no fish were spotted.

With the initial counts, Earnshaw was hopeful the brook would experience a run like that of 2012 with 90,625 fish, a number that is projected based on the counts and the duration of the run. Last year’s count was 27,552 and the worst since the coalition started counting 15 years ago was 15,000 in 2015.

Phil Edwards, supervising biologist of freshwater fish and diadromous fish at the Department of Environmental Management, expects to have a broader view of herring runs by the middle of this month. In addition to Buckeye Brook that flows out of Warwick Pond, there are Warwick runs in the Apponaug River and Hardig Brook that flow in and out of Gorton Pond. Generally, Edwards said, the Warwick runs tend to be later than others in the state.

He said that surveys conducted last fall at Warwick Pond found “high numbers” of juvenile fish. These are three- to five-inch fish that migrate to the ocean where they mature to adults before returning to where they hatched to spawn three to four years later. After spawning they return to the ocean.

“It’s been lagging this year,” said Earnshaw. But he remains hopeful that with a rise in water temperature this year will be a good run.

One thing that’s certain is that there’s no lack of water in the brook. And while that has made for some soggy weather, it’s good news for returning buckeyes.