The bait fishery is an important but often overlooked component of the menhaden industry. It is frequently lost in the shadow of the reduction fishery. But the east coast bait fishery is critical to both commercial and recreational fishing from Maine to South Carolina and as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. In the waters of almost all of the Atlantic coastal states, the fish is harvested and used as bait in crab pots, lobster pots, and hook and line fisheries.
WASHINGTON (Saving Seafood) February 27, 2012 – Most Americans have probably never heard of Atlantic menhaden, a small, oily fish not prized for its taste. However, the public is likely aware of the nutritive benefits that menhaden provides as a source for Omega 3 fish oils. The fish is also converted into fish meal and hundreds of other common products from margarine to pet food to salad dressing. And, although no restaurant will likely feature menhaden on its menu anytime soon, the fish does represent an important means for catching an array of preferred seafood species, not to mention a wide variety of sport fish.
Indeed, the bait fishery is an important but often overlooked component of the menhaden industry, frequently lost in the shadow of the reduction fishery. But the east coast bait fishery is critical to both commercial and recreational fishing from Maine to South Carolina and as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. In the waters of almost all of the Atlantic coastal states, the fish is harvested and used as bait in crab pots, lobster pots, and hook and line fisheries. Without much fluctuation in menhaden reduction landings, by which the fish is processed for commercial applications, bait landings have become more relevant in the overall fishery. According to a report prepared by NOAA and the New Jersey Division of Game and Fish, the bait fishery averaged 11 percent of total menhaden landings from 1985-2000. Now, the bait fishery makes up around 20 percent of total menhaden catch. The report also states that from 2000 to 2009, the annual bait fishery harvest averaged around 77 million pounds.
And as bait itself, the significance of menhaden seems to be growing with recent harvest restrictions on other bait fish species. For instance, partly due to a decrease in the herring catch, a major source of lobster bait, menhaden has become an increasingly popular choice for Maine lobstermen. An article that appeared in Maine’s Fisherman’s Voice recently stated that menhaden represented only six percent of lobster bait in 2006. By 2008, that percentage more than tripled to 19 percent, and now may be as high as 32 percent.
“The menhaden fishery is a huge part of keeping us fishing,” says Patrice McCarron, executive director of the Maine Lobstermen’s Association. And that’s no small thing as McCarron explains that the lobster fishery is easily the state’s largest, generating a direct value of between $300-325 million and indirect economic impacts in the $1 billion neighborhood. “With the reduction of herring, menhaden has taken up the difference,” she says.
Certainly, Jennie Bichrest, owner of Purse Line Baits in Sebasco Estates, Maine, can attest to the growing importance of menhaden as bait. “Pogies (menhaden) have always been my mainstay, but now everyone’s buying them,” she says. “Looking back at my books, my company handled 4,842,000 pounds of menhaden in 2007. Last year, that number went up to 9,500,000 pounds.” This increase represents double the amount of menhaden over a four-year period.
But Maine hardly holds a monopoly on the menhaden bait fishery. Moving south, New Jersey currently ranks at the top among states in the Mid-Atlantic for menhaden bait landings. This fact hardly surprises Jeff Reichle, president of Lund’s Fisheries in Cape May. Established in 1954, Reichle’s business produces various species of fish for consumers and for commercial and recreational fishing. Of its menhaden sales, Reichle reports that the majority of sales are for bait, as opposed to reduction, with the highest volume sold for the lobster and blue crab industries and significant sales going to the recreational fishery for a variety of species, such as snapper, grouper, and shark. And while not the only part of his business, menhaden has played an increasingly important role.
“We’re not just a bait or menhaden business, but it’s an important part of our business,” says Reichle. “We can’t walk on one leg. Because of quota cuts and catch restrictions on other fish, “if we don’t have menhaden, we can’t survive on the other species alone.”
That refrain is echoed a few states south of New Jersey as well. “We wouldn’t survive without the bait industry,” declares Stanley O’Bier, president of Pride of Virginia Seafood in the state’s Northern Neck region. Established as a small crabbing operation with a single freezer in 1965, the business has grown to include four plants with a freezer capacity of 40,000 square feet and its own trucking company. For the last three decades, Pride of Virginia Seafood has been a premier dealer of baitfish — including menhaden, herring, and mudshad — for private and commercial fishermen along the eastern seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico. “Look at the money from the crab fishery,” which he says has had one of its most successful years in Virginia. “If you don’t have the bait to put in those pots, you can’t make that.”
Certainly these kinds of dynamics are helping keep Jimmy Kellum of Virginia-based Kellum Maritime LLC in business as well. Kellum runs two menhaden fishing companies and caught 24 million pounds of the fish last year alone. He sells half to the reduction industry and half as bait to Pride of Virginia Seafood. Of his bait sales, Kellum estimates that 90 percent goes to commercial fishing, mostly for bait for crabs, lobsters and crawfish; in fact, Louisiana crawfish operations rank among his most significant clientele. “The bait fishery has expanded in the past few years because other states have closed their fisheries,” he says.
Just south of Virginia, the menhaden bait fishery is also crucial to North Carolina’s enormous blue crab industry, the state’s largest fishery by value and volume. According to the North Carolina Department of Marine Fisheries, over 30 million pounds of blue crab were caught in the state in 2010, 42 percent of all landings, at a value of over $26 million. The state agency also estimates that the blue crab fishery used 11 million pounds of menhaden bait in 2010.
Even though relatively little menhaden is caught in North Carolina and most is imported from other states, Sean McKeon, president of the North Carolina Commercial Fisheries Association, considers menhaden “one of the most important” fisheries for his constituents. “I can’t think of any fishery that would affect the state of North Carolina more based on the number of people who use it for bait in the crab fishery,” he says.
Billy Carl Tillet agrees. As chairman of the North Carolina Fisheries Association and owner of Moon Tillet Fishing Company, one of the largest privately owned fishing and seafood trading companies in the Outer Banks, Tillet notes a growing demand among crabbers for menhaden bait. “For catching crabs, [menhaden] is the best year-round bait they have,” he says. “It’s what the crabs like best, and it holds up in the pots.”
And, because more people are turning to menhaden for bait, McKeon adds that the menhaden bait fishery “is poised to grow if they don’t regulate it out of business.”
There are countless other examples that demonstrate the growing importance of the menhaden bait fishery, whether for sport or for the significant fishing industries on which so many livelihoods depend. Bait dealers, commercial fisherman, and recreational anglers along the East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico are increasingly relying on the little fish whose name remains unfamiliar to a majority of Americans. But even if the name never quite registers in the popular lexicon, its role as a bait fish is sure to touch an ever expanding number of end consumers.