Menhaden: Pogy, Mossbunker, Fat Back, and 30 other common names.
The menhaden, like the herring, almost invariably travels in schools of hundreds or thousands of individuals, swimming closely side by side and tier above tier. In calm weather they often come to the surface where their identity can be recognized by the ripple they make, for pogies, like herring, make a much more compact disturbance than mackerel do, and “a much bluer and heavier commotion than herring, which hardly make more of a ripple than does a light breeze passing over the water,” as W. F. Clapp has stated to us. Also, pogies as they feed, frequently lift their snouts out of water, which we have never seen herring do, while they break the water with their dorsal fins, also with their tails. And the brassy hue of their sides catches the eye (as we have often seen), if one rows close to a school in calm weather.
No wonder the fat oily menhaden, swimming in schools of closely ranked individuals, helpless to protect itself, is the prey of every predaceous animal. Whales and porpoises devour them in large numbers; sharks are often seen following the pogy schools; pollock, cod, silver hake, and swordfish all take their toll in the Gulf of Maine, as do weakfish south of Cape Cod. Tuna also kill great numbers. But the worst enemy of all is the bluefish, and this is true even in the Gulf of Maine during periods when both bluefish and menhaden are plentiful there. Not only do these pirates devour millions of menhaden every summer, but they kill far more than they eat. Besides the toll taken by these natural enemies, menhaden often strand in myriads in shoal water, either in their attempt to escape their enemies or for other reasons, to perish and pollute the air for weeks with the stench of their decaying carcasses.
Currently, according to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, based on the 2017 Stock Assessment Update, Atlantic menhaden are neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing. More here on the commercial harvest for reduction to fishmeal and oil and the commercial and recreational bait fishery.
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