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
Atlantic herring not considered to be an Arctic species. The small-sized herring in the inner parts of the Baltic Sea, which is also less fatty than the true Atlantic herring, is considered a distinct subspecies ("Clupea harengus membras") ("Baltic herring"), despite the lack of a distinctive genome. The Baltic herring has a specific name in many local languages (Swedish "strömming", Finnish "silakka", Estonian "räim", "silk", Livonian "siļk", Russian "салака", Polish "śledź bałtycki, sałaka", Latvian "reņģes", Lithuanian "strimelė") and is popularly and in cuisine considered distinct from herring. For example, the Swedish dish surströmming is made from Baltic herring. Herrings reach sexual maturity