Wednesday, October 15, 2025

12.14.12 Bad week to be a forage fish....

     It's one of the most contentious and polarizing topics when it comes to commercial fishing. Menhaden. Bunker. Pogies. It was the center of the book written by H. Bruce Franklin, 

The Most Important Fish in the Sea. Why is it such a big deal? Well, it's the story of fish, and greed. Bunker are a huge staple in the diet of predator fish, and mammals, and birds, and probably reptiles as well. Everything eats bunker. Just think of the species that we have around New Jersey that eat bunker for dinner, and breakfast, and lunch. And we're not just talking about adult bunker, but the peanuts as well. 

     Flounder, bluefish, striped bass, weakfish, tuna, whales, ospreys, gulls, eagles, cormorants, foxes, stray dogs, and yes even some humans...yuk. When you go fishing and make another excuse as to why you're not catching, "There wasn't any bait", is always an easy go to. But it's true. Find the bait and you may find the fish. When those boat guys head out in the spring and fall what are they looking for? They're looking for those Nat Geo moments when the birds are over eaters preying on bunker. It's better than any electronics you have on the boat. 


     For years my buddy Paul Eidman has been in the fight to save the menhaden as the leader of the Menhaden Defenders. Now some see Paul as a PETA tree-hugging conservationist turned activist, which may be slightly true, but he's been a thorn in the side of the reduction 


fleets down in Virginia and Canada. I first joined Paul in Washington D.C. in 2012 when we headed down to the Good Ole' Boys territory during the ASMFC Menhaden Management meeting. 


     It was a heated meeting. The Virginia and southern boys wanted to protect Omega Protein, operator of the largest reduction fleet fisheries on the East Coast, and down into the Gulf of America (Used to be Mexico). Back then 200,000 metric tons was the quota and that number has grown to 230,000 since then. And of course it was during that meeting that I met what I 


call the Axis of Evel of New Jersey's fisheries management representatives, Nowalsky, Himchek, and Foti. They would go on to vote with their Virginia brothers who, at the end, pulled 


the race card by prancing in minority workers from Omega to demonstrate who would really be affected if the quotas were reduced. I remember watching the workers standing 


there with not all of them really aware of why they were there or what was going on. Jimmy Kellum, from Virginia, just sat there with a big old smile on his face like, Game, Set, Match. You can read my take from that December 2012 meeting, HERE.

     Each year we see boats, and spotter planes as well, in and around New Jersey waters decimating entire schools of menhaden. While 80% of the take of menhaden, the reduction fishery, where bunker is reduced to make Omega rich supplements and ground up foods for pets and living things, 20% of the hauls are for the bait sector.


     Bunker make great baits for traps, like lobster and crabs. We see bunker in both the spring and the fall. To note, bunker don't spawn in the bays and rivers, they spawn offshore and the eggs are brought into the estuaries with the tides. And besides being a meal, bunker are filter feeders, like mollusks, which do wonders when it comes to cleaning up bodies of water, especially the bays. Think the Raritan, and more importantly the Chesapeake. Just imagine getting ready for a party in your dusty and pet-dander filled house and the vacuum cleaner is broken. 

     So, what's this all about. Well the ASMFC has determined that, through all their science and data, they may have incorrectly determined the health of the menhaden biomass. If fact they were off by 37%, not taking into account natural mortality. On October 28th the ASMFC will hold their menhaden meeting, where reductions, in the reduction fishery, should be on the table. Some say they need to reduce that number by 300,000,000 pounds into order to have a 50% chance of not exceeding the fishing mortality rate. 


      So, right now, Virginia, and the share holders, and their friends from places like New Jersey, are preparing for a fight. And I'm sure that will be printing up T-shirts for those workers to again be pranced into some meeting sharing disparity to its employees, specifically of Omega Protein. 

     And closer to home word has gotten out that American shad and river herring,other key forage fish, are not at sustainable levels in the Delaware River. Recent studies have determined they are now depleted. And that is not good. The words out and the media, like The Philadelphia Inquirer, are taking notice and reporting on it. That's from article published today. 


     A white paper report was released in late September by the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary. It discusses not only American shad, but the river herring as well. River herring is a 


collective term for blueback and alewives, which at times are hard to differentiate between the two. Both fishes live in the ocean, come into the Delaware Bay and River in late winter to spawn, and then the YOY make their way out into the ocean during the fall. 


     "American shad and river herring populations are now depleted in the Delaware River basin....". Reasons given for the historic decline, over a century, in both fishes are; overfishing, habitat fragmentation, low DO levels, and loss of access to the damming of tributaries. They also state that non-native and invasive predation also has be attributed to the decline in numbers. 


     The report also states that through seine surveys the YOY of American shad is robust, while the spawning fishes are depleted. That's kind of confusing, to me, like overfished and overfishing, in fisheries management jargon. Below you can see the juvenile numbers, 



and above the spawning female index. Less spawning fish producing more juveniles, but, is that sustainable? Since 1999 the Pennsylvania Boat and Fish Commission has stocked shad in the Delaware, Lehigh, and Schuylkill Rivers. In the tributaries the stocking has been determined a success as many returns are found during seine surveys. 

     River herring did far worse during the New Jersey Striped Bass Seine Survey's conducted each year. While I'm sure the numbers were greater then zero, as seen below, 


there is a marked downward trend in YOY found during those surveys. In 2012 New Jersey banned the commercial and recreational harvesting of river herring, much to the chagrin of striped bass fishermen who used to say, "One bass for every herring". From my friend's accounts they tell me it wasn't uncommon for anglers to catch hundreds of river herring on Sabiki 


rigs and put them in holding tanks in the back of their vehicles. They'd be used for bait in the river or transported down to the beach and set free, on a hook. They also say selling them to tackle shops was a way to cover the gas, a pack of smokes, and a coffee or some beer. 


     Above is John Scelfo, an old friend from the Asbury Park Fishing Club, livelining a herring off 8th Avenue back in the day. Sadly he passed in September of 2023. 


     Interestingly the report discusses the impact that fishing, even catch and release fishing, has on American shad and river herring. "Constant fishing pressure also alters the genetics and life history of fish stocks through time". So, while you may not see a No-Target for striped bass in the near future, but hey who knows what the ASMFC will do, wording like this on these species may lead to stricter regulations. 


     And then there's always those striped bass to blame. "Predation can occur at a significant level to perpetuate a local collapse of river herring populations." Not only do we see that with river herring but north of the border in Canada they say striped bass are having a negative impact on salmonoids in spawning rivers. While guys tell me that bass love American shad, they would have to be pretty big to choke down a big buck or roe shad. While river herring are just a perfect sized, and shaped, snack for bass both big and small. 

     Also discussed are the effects of dredging in the rivers that serve big-city ports, water quality and flows, and predation by channel and blue cats, as well as northern snakeheads. Dam removals, or at least fish passages, can help spawning in the Delaware River tributaries. 


     And then let's circle back to the bunker for a minute. Is there any connection between Omega Protein, or the reduction fishery, and American shad and river herring? Yes there is. In regards to herring, there are river herring and Atlantic herring. So while these boats are harvesting some fish, others, like American shad and river herring, are caught and killed as by-catch. And don't think for a minute that when entire schools of bunker are swallowed up fishes like striped bass and tuna aren't caught up in the mix. 

     So we all have to look at one thing, sustainability. We have to look past 40 fish shad days at the New Hope Bridge, watching schools of river herring pinned to the banks in Burlington, pods of bunker being harassed by 30's, 40's, and 50's off the Highlands Bridge, or pockets full of peanuts in Jetty Country. The bigger picture is that these fisheries, from the ones we catch for fun or to eat, or the ones that the ones we catch for fun or to eat, eat, just aren't sustainable for a myriad of factors. 


     If we all just fly fished with single barbless hooks, from the shore, everything would be better and there'd be a lot more fish swimming. I'm just kidding. That's just the PETA tree-hugger in me coming out. 

You can read that American shad/ river herring white paper, HERE