May 10, 2021 — For decades, lobstermen have filled their bait bags with Atlantic herring, the small fish that plays a tremendous role in the food chain and is the preferred bait of Maine’s biggest fishery.
“We’ve trained and raised our lobsters on it,” said James Hanscom, a Bar Harbor-based lobstermen who also sells bait. “It’s definitely the bait of choice.”
But as quotas for Atlantic herring have tightened over the years, lobstermen and bait dealers have been forced to look elsewhere for other baits to lure in lobsters.
Over the course of the last few years, the quotas on herring have been cut by 88 percent and the quota will drop again next year as the herring stock has been deemed overfished.
“The demand is high, but the supply just isn’t there,” said Brittany Willis, a partner and general manager of JBR Maine, a wholesale bait and lobster company with locations in Gouldsboro and Winter Harbor.
The problem is, while it’s considered overfished, Atlantic herring isn’t currently being overfished, leaving officials scratching their heads on what’s preventing the species from thriving.
For the past seven or eight years, there’s been little to no “recruitment,” or new baby herring, in the fishery, said Emily Gilbert, who supervises the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s herring team.
Without young herring being added to the mix, the stock hasn’t been able to recover.
Herring are found on the Atlantic coast from Canada to Virginia. Catch in the U.S. peaked in 1986 around 1.05 billion pounds. By the 2000s, landings held stable at about 250 million pounds but since dropped to 39 million pounds in 2019.