Hickory shad Hickory shad 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
Herring juvenile herring could never catch a large copepod. Other pelagic prey eaten by herring includes fish eggs, larval snails, diatoms by herring larvae below , tintinnids by larvae below , molluscan larvae, menhaden larvae, krill, mysids, smaller fishes, pteropods, annelids, "Calanus" spp., Centropagidae, and "Meganyctiphanes norvegica". Herrings, along with Atlantic cod and sprat, are the most important commercial species to humans in the Baltic Sea. The analysis of the stomach contents of these fish indicate Atlantic cod is the top predator, preying on the herring and sprat. Sprat are competitive with herring for the same food resources. This is evident