The people were there on time Saturday.

The fish were late.

The group American Rivers staged an event Saturday for the media and elected officials at the site of the old Steele’s Mill Dam in Cordova to showcase the return of the American shad. The shad is a species of fish that lives in the ocean but travels upstream to spawn in rivers and creeks.

For more than 100 years dams blocked the travels of fish going up and down Hitchcock Creek. The Cordova one was removed late last year through the work of the City of Rockingham and the state and federal government.

“It was a great day, but the shad had not made it up that far yet,” said Matt Rice, of American Rivers. “They’ve made it up as far as Blewett Falls, so hopefully we will be doing some surveys next week to find out the situation.”

Removing the dam near the von Drehle Corp. was part of a much larger project to develop a canoe trail that will stretch from the Roberdel Dam about 10 miles to the Pee River. Even though the trail is still in the works, Rice took the opportunity to paddle down the five mile stretch to the old Pee Dee Dam site.

“There were some blockages by downed trees, but it was amazing,” Rice said. “It was a quality paddling trip that I haven’t done in a long, long time.”

There are areas where the water flows too fast for a novice canoe enthusiast, like the area near von Drehle, but Rice said it was easy enough to paddle the boat to shore and then walk around the rough spots.

“For me that’s an interesting feature of the trail. If you’re proficient, you can run it with the right boat, but if you’re not it’s easy enough to avoid.”

The trip took Rice about four hours. A novice might require five or six if they stop for lunch or for swimming.

“What’s great about this creek is that there is enough access,” he said.

Rice said American shad are known as the country’s founding fish because they were such an important food source for Native Americans and early settlers. The fish leave the ocean and enter rivers along the east coast in early spring to spawn. If unimpeded by dams, they can travel upstream for hundreds of miles to reach their spawning grounds.

“I’d say the typical size in South Carolina is about a pound and 17 inches long,” Rice said. “A really big one can weigh two or three pounds. I’m more a fly fisherman than a fish expert. I like to catch them.”

Kirk Rundall, a district biologist based in Rocky Mount, said when river levels drop, shad will retreat back to deeper water and then venture forward when levels get higher again.

“A lot of it depends on temperature and flows, and the temperature is about perfect right now,” Rundall said.

According to Rice, while Rockingham’s “Blue Trail” on Hitchcock Street is designed for small boaters, by developing it the city will open up a number of recreational opportunities, including fishing.

For the diner, the American shad is known as having white meat and is very high in Omega-3.

“There is only one real problem - They’re bony. There are people who can (debone) one but there really is an art to it,” Rice said.

Rockingham City Manager Monty Crump agrees.

“They are the boniest thing you’ll ever eat,” Crump said. “I’ve tried before and I couldn’t do it.”

Rice said nobody really knows the impact removing the dam and reopening a stretch of creek will have on fish and other wildlife.

“We will have to find out. Two or three miles could be a very important spawning stretch, or it could be not be very important at all. There are shad runs in virtually every eastern watershed, and a lot of these runs have been decimated because of large dams.”

Crump said it might be a month before the fish make their way up stream to Cordova.

“I know they’re catching them at Blewitt Falls at the foot of the dam,” Crump said.

The city is preparing a grant application with the North Carolina Division of Water Resources for money to help develop the trail.

“We’re going to get that in the next 30 to 60 days, but there are things we can do in the meanwhile,” Crump said.

For Rice, the paddle trip was a nice experience.

“It’s just a matter of taking one step at a time,” Rice said. “To me it was amazing to be right in town and not even hear a car, especially in the upper sections.”

Peter Williams can be reached at 910-997-3111 ext. 18 or by e-mailing pwilliams@yourdailyjournal.com.