Menhaden Fish
Species > Menhaden
What is Menhaden?
Menhaden fish, also known as mossbunker, bunker, bug fish, fat-back, shiner, whitefish, old-wife, chebog, greentail, and porgy, is a small bait fish of the herring family found in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean from inshore estuaries all the way out to the Atlantic shelf. Menhaden spawn in estuaries where their young are known as "peanut bunker".
There are two types of Menhaden, the Atlantic Menhaden with a greyish tail and the Gulf Menhaden with a bright yellow tail. Gulf Menhaden can be found from the Yucat?n Peninsula, Mexico to Louisiana. The Atlantic menhaden ranges from Jupiter Inlet, Florida, to Nova Scotia.
Atlantic Menhaden | Gulf Menhaden |
Menhaden are very stinky fish with bony flesh so it scares off even the most adventurous diners. Their smell is very distinctive and it is not hard to "smell" a nearby school if the wind is blowing your way..
Menhaden are filter feeders who swim rapidly with their mouths open, straining water through their gills and filtering out plankton and algae. Menhaden range in weight up to 1 pound (0.45 kg) and can be 15 inches (380 mm) long, but are smaller the further south they inhabit.
Fisherman use ground menhaden chum as a fish attractant, cut it up for chunk chumming, or use the whole fish as bait. Anglers also purchase menhaden oil or menhaden milk and use it straight or as an additive to their chum mix.
Large Schools of Menhaden
Menhaden fish travel in large, slow moving, and tightly packed schools with open mouths constantly feeding. Offshore schools can sometimes contain a million fish.
Usually found in large schools, cast nets are used to catch Menhaden Fish by recreational fisherman and purse seines are used by commercial fisherman. Annually commercial fisherman catch over 500 million pounds of this fish. Menhaden is usually processed fresh, they don't last long frozen as the oils degrade. They get soft, squishy and very stinky. The exception is using a vacuum pack system.
Cast netting Menhaden for fishing bait is easy. First locate a school and using a sardine cast net throw it over a school then return to your boat. A Transfer Net put in the water helps to release the fish from the cast net and transfer to your bait well. Menhaden are also very intolerant of low dissolved oxygen and will die quickly in a poorly aerated live well, so don't overcrowd them. Watch this video to see cast netting Menhaden in action:
Menhaden Products for Fishing
Menhaden Oil
Menhaden oil is a very stinky fatty oil obtained from the menhaden fish. Menhaden oil is an excellent fish attractant either on it's own or added to your chum mixture.
Look for "cold pressed oil" which means it was processed cold resulting in a more intense flavor. This oil is an ideal additive to your homemade fish chum recipe and can also be used to marinate your bait or on its own using a drip dispenser.
Pour some menhaden into your drip dispenser, set the valve on the drip tube so the menhaden oil drips slowly into the water. This oil slick can attract fish from miles.
Menhaden Milk
Menhaden milk is menhaden oil that has been emulsified and condensed making it water miscible meaning it can dissolve into another liquid in any proportion without separating. Because it mixes with water, it becomes neutrally buoyant and allows it to flow through the water column rather than immediately rising to the surface.
Menhaden Drip Dispensers
There are two types of dispensers used if you are dispensing straight menhaden?a bag drip unit or a PVC drip dispenser. All units come with a long, sometimes 5 foot, tube for slow dispensing of the milk or oil.
Hang the dispenser off a cleat on your boat or from a long line, the unit will float on the water surface. Some units come with weighted tubes to bring the drip slick below the surface.
These units come with a with the petcock to control the flow of the liquid being dispensed and a loop on the top for attaching to a line.
You can also use a medical IV dispenser or any type of dispenser that releases a slow stream or drip into the water.
Menhaden Attractants & Lures
There are many products sold as attractants that come in Menhaden flavor. These attractants can be used as an additive to your chum mix or put on your fishing lure or bait. They work well but are not "pure" menhaden, although they are less expensive. There are also artificial fishing lures made to look like the Menhaden fish that work very well.
The History of Menhaden Fisheries
The Menhaden fish has been a very important fish throughout history. From being used for fertilizer to fuel, Menhaden has a very import role in our history. In the late 1800's to the 1960's factories for processing menhaden for it's oil were numerous. They would send out scout planes to locate large schools then send their fishing boats equipped with purse seines to collect the Menhaden. Sometime in the 1960's the populations of the Menhaden declined to the point where these factories closed. For a very good account of the history, please read this blog by Southern Fried Science.
Save the Menhaden
Menhaden are a very important food source for both fish and birds. They are also the "cleaners" of the sea by filtering out matter in our oceans. The Menhaden Fish is extremely important to ocean ecology and all the products they are useful for is increasing the pressure on them, especially in the Chesapeake Bay area where populations have significantly declined effecting the bay's water quality.
Menhaden fish are used in many popular products which is one of the major reasons for overfishing and their population decline. Along with being used as a fishing attractant, it is also used in paint and ink, in treating leather, as a fertilizer (fish meal), as a dietary supplement because its a good source of omega-3, an additive in lipstick, and it is being used in cancer research.
Due to their many uses, they are becoming threatened. There is a movement called Save Menhaden that is worth visiting. Many major corporations and industry advocates are joining the fight to save this fish. Anglers are not the source of their decline, the products manufactured from them are such as vitamin supplements have caused overharvesting.
There is a popular book about how the menhaden is the most important fish on the Atlantic Coast, called "The Most Important Fish in the Sea" H. Bruce Franklin.