Hickory Shad

Alosa mediocris
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Clupeiformes
Family:	Clupeidae
Genus:	Alosa
Species:	A. mediocris
Binomial name
Alosa mediocris (Mitchill, 1814)

Hickory shad (Alosa mediocris) is a member of the herring family Clupeidae, ranging along the East Coast of the United States from Florida to the Gulf of Maine. It is an anadromous fish species, meaning that it spawns in freshwater portions of rivers but spends most of its life at sea. It is subject to fishing, both historic and current, but it is often confused with or simply grouped together with catch statistics for American shad (Alosa sapidissima).

Hickory shad ranges from northern Florida to the Gulf of Maine. The largest populations occur in Chesapeake Bay and coastal North Carolina (Munroe 2002). It is a schooling anadromous species that inhabits marine waters, probably never far from land. Adults enter estuaries and freshwater tributaries from the St. John's River, Florida, to the Patuxent River, Maryland,to spawn during the spring. Their oceanic movements are poorly documented (Hardy 1978; Cooper 1983; Rulifson 1994).

Spawning occurs from December to June, earliest in Florida and later with increasing latitude (Hardy 1978; Harris et al. 2007). The slightly adhesive and demersal eggs, approximately 1 mm in diameter, appear to be dispersed at random over gravel bars in moderate current. After water hardening, the eggs become semi-buoyant and develop as they drift along the bottom (Mansueti 1962; Hardy 1978; Cooper 1983). Fecundity ranges from 43,000 – 475,000 eggs per female, and, although the developmental stages of eggs, larvae, and juveniles have been described, little is known concerning the distribution, ecology, and growth rates of these early life stages (Mansueti 1962; Hardy 1978).

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