Menhaden: Bait, Oil And Water
by Brenda Tredwell

Mid-Atlantic menhaden seining, 1968. The menhaden fishery in the area is very big business and very consolidated. This scene would seem a quaint throw back up against the ships that now sweep the mid atlantic states for menhaden Photo: NOAA

Atlantic Menhaden, Brevoortia tyrannus is the official name and scientific classification for the bait fish known in Maine as pogys. Menhaden is the Anglicized version of the Algonquin and Narragansett word “munnawhatteaug.” The Abnakis and Penobscots of the northern territories had their own word for menhaden: pauhagen. Translated, the word means fertilizer.

Menhaden was abundant during colonial times, traveling in massive schools along the Atlantic coast. William Hutchinson Rowe wrote in his “Maritime History of Maine” that post Civil War industry created an increased demand for the production of menhaden oil, and that small industries set up for fish oil “reduction” processing were started (1855) along the shores of Blue Hill Bay.

According to Rowe, “This oil, which brought only 25 cents a gallon in 1863, soared to $1.25 during the war.”

The abundance of the catch off the Maine coast during that era led to the establishment of several fish oil factories, the first of which was W.A. Wells and Company in 1864 in Bristol.

The fishery, which started with small seine boats, evolved into fleets of steamers looking to harvest pogys for their valuable oil. Fish were steamed and the oil was extracted with hydraulic force, leaving the viscera to be processed as fertilizer. By 1876, 21,414 tons of fertilizer was produced in Lincoln County alone, in addition to 2,000,000 gallons of menhaden oil. Herring and sardines filled the industrial void after 1874 when large schools of menhaden appear to have abandoned Maine waters, never again returning in large enough quantity to support large-scale industry. Only a handful of small reduction fishery plants remained along the Maine coast, supplied by coastal seiners, who were also bringing in herring and mackerel.

David Libby at the DMR says that as far as pogys go, 1993 was the last recent year of any significant catch along Maine’s coast. In 2002, 70,000 pounds were harvested, followed by a catch of 25,000 pounds in 2005. In 1985, there was a large-scale menhaden die off.

“Ironically, something happens when pogys get herded by a larger species, like bluefish, and chased into small coves and inlets. Their oxygen gets depleted, oil clogs their gills and the fish literally drown,” explained Libby. “Menhaden are important to monitor, and are a key species,” Libby added, meaning that menhaden are ‘key’ not only as forage for larger fish, but in their role in the ocean system as a whole.

Menhaden feed on phytoplankton, ’filtering’ the water they inhabit, keeping nitrogen levels in balance and allowing the growth of healthy algae which produce oxygen for all species. The ASMFC reports in its Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden that from 1994 to 2004, there have been no landings of Atlantic Menhaden in the Gulf of Maine for the reduction fishery. Water temperature, sediment, salinity levels (which are affected by coastal flooding and hurricanes) and bio-accumulated run-off (pesticides, fertilizers, mercury and pharmaceutical waste) affect all fisheries, and has serious impact on the Atlantic Menhaden. These environmental factors affect the health of the stock in the Gulf and Southern Atlantic region where menhaden are aggressively harvested for industrial use in products such as fertilizer. Fertilizer, in turn, contributes to nitrogen imbalance through agricultural run-off, which, in turn, creates “toxic algae.” Toxic algae contributes to diseases in filter feeding fish whose function it is within the ecosystem in the first place is to keep nitrogen levels low and aid oxygen producing algae by clearing the water of excess phytoplankton.

The 2004 harvest for the menhaden reduction fishery was 184,450 mt, while landings of menhaden by the bait fisheries measured in at 34,743 mt—16% of the combined total menhaden catch. The ASMFC 2005 Review of the FMP for Atlantic Menhaden points out the fact that “the bait fishery for menhaden has become increasingly more important from North Carolina to New England.”

Don Cundy has lobstered and seined around Monhegan, mostly for mackerel and herring, save for a short time spent inshore in Boothbay during the 80’s when he and his crew went for pogies in the bays and coves.

“Planes used to set us from me air,” he said. “They’d use radio contact - it was fun, I guess....”

The pogy oil was used as a lubricant for fine machinery. There had been a factory-place in Rockland, closed now, where the oil was sold.

“Pogies went to the bottom at night. They didn’t come up ‘til eight or nine. Herring did the opposite—went to the bottom during the day, came up at night. Herring are slower than pogies. They’d bag up, snarl the net up. Mackerel’s a faster fish. They didn’t care, they’d come up anytime, scare up me phosphorus under the dark of the moon. At night, you’d sit around the glow.”