The Mattapoisett River is an 11.6 miles (18.7 km) river in southeastern Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

The river begins at Snipatuit Pond

Snipatuit Pond

Snipatuit Pond is a shallow warm water pond in Rochester, Massachusetts. The average depth is five feet and the maximum depth is six feet, except for one very small nine foot hole near the pump station on the west shore. The pond is the headwaters of the Mattapoisett River...

 in Rochester

Rochester, Massachusetts

Rochester is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 5,232 at the 2010 census.-History:Rochester was settled in 1679 on the lands called "Sippican" by the local Wampanoags, along the coast of Buzzards Bay...

 and flows generally southwards through Mattapoisett

Mattapoisett, Massachusetts

Mattapoisett is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 6,463 at the 2008 census.For geographic and demographic information on the village of Mattapoisett Center, please see the article Mattapoisett Center, Massachusetts....

 to empty into Mattapoisett Harbor, an arm of Buzzards Bay

Buzzards Bay

Buzzards Bay is a bay along the southern edge of Massachusetts in the United States. The name may also refer to:*Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, a village in Bourne, Massachusetts*Buzzards Bay , the name of the horse that won the 2005 Santa Anita Derby...

. It flows through wetlands during much of its course.

Historically, the Mattapoisett River has yielded the bay's most abundant herring

Herring

Herring is an oily fish of the genus Clupea, found in the shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans, including the Baltic Sea. Three species of Clupea are recognized. The main taxa, the Atlantic herring and the Pacific herring may each be divided into subspecies...

 populations. For example, town reports for 1906 recorded that the river's total catch was 626,000 alewives

Alewife

The alewife is a species of herring. There are anadromous and landlocked forms. The landlocked form is also called a sawbelly or mooneye...

, and a further 465,000 alewives were noted in the 1907 report. In the referenced 1920's report the river served for "flooding cranberry bogs and for mill purposes" and featured three herring weir

Weir

A weir is a small overflow dam used to alter the flow characteristics of a river or stream. In most cases weirs take the form of a barrier across the river that causes water to pool behind the structure , but allows water to flow over the top...

s; the "Upper Herring Weir" in Rochester, the "Middle Weir" or "Church's Weir", and the "Lower Herring Weir" at the entrance to Mattapoisett Harbor.

Fish populations drastically declined during the twentieth century until they were almost extinguished, but local restoration efforts from the 1980s onwards have fostered a slow recovery. The principal restoration tactic has been to remove snags and other obstacles from the river that serve to impede fish migrations. The Lower Herring Weir is one of the few rivers emptying into Buzzards Bay that has electronic fish counters installed. Reports from Alewives Anonymous documented in the more recent Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program report show that the improvements peaked in 2000 with over 130,000, but dropped off again and have been below 20,000 since 2003.

Older residents refer to the Mattapoisett River as "the Herring Run", and a highway sign where the river flows under US Route 6 once identified the river by this unofficial name.

Since 1934, the river has been the venue for the Annual Rochester to Mattapoisett Memorial Day Boat Race. The event draws a lot of interesting boats, from antiques to home-made "secret weapons". (See History of the Race, Favorite Places - Mattapoisett River, and Free Photos of 75th Race in 2009)