Pogies

[joefishmore]

I didn't realize there is a daily limit on pogies, 25.
And what is  the limit for a seiner ?

[Sampson]

Not enough

[fishless12]

Like most things, it's more complicated than meets the eye. The Atlantic States Maritime Service sets the total allowable catch (TAC) for the entire east coast. A portion of the TAC is allocated to the State. Fishermen participate in different categories of fishing based on the scale of their effort. The largest boats are limited more so by the State's management of the TAC than their daily limits, which are enormous. When a certain amount of the TAC is caught, the largest scale fishery is shutdown. There is a smaller scale fishery that is allowed to continue with a limit of 6,000 lbs per day. This wouldn't really pay the bills for the largest boats, but might make sense for lobstermen trying to catch their own bait, with possibly some extra to sell to their friends.

What's crazy is that the State is allocated a VERY small portion of the Menhaden (pogie) TAC compared to the mid Atlantic States and one company called Omega Protein. Omega Protein harvests pogies on an enormous scale and uses them for fish meal, cosmetics and other products.

In other words, recreational fishermen love to look around at a lobstermen using a small gill net or seine and say "see they're catching all the pogies and the stripers and tuna aren't going to have anythinng left to eat!" When you could point to the larger boats as the ones who are 'catching all the fish' it's actually the other states and particularly Omega responsible for the lions share of the harvest. This year the herring TAC was cut significantly, so it's likely that more and more lobstermen will be trying to catch their own bait.

https://www.maine.gov/dmr/laws-regulations/regulations/index.html

[MG39]

There was no shortage of them in my striper area last year. There were thousands of them in several schools in the bays and the head of the tide.
You couldn't cast a lure of any kind without foul hooking one. That being said, I only saw a few fish busting in them and that was when they had them cornered
at the end of a cove.

[fishless12]

MG39, you've just touched on one of the great mysteries surrounding menhaden in Maine. Conventional wisdom and most magazine articles suggest that they make excellent bait and stripers routinely feed on the large schools. I've only had luck on chunked pogies and haven't seen schools of stripers attacking them en masse. I know they do to the south, but for some reason in Maine it's different.

[woodchip1]

I,ve seen it In Royal river and Saco river in years past

[NBourque]

We don’t get near the numbers of stripers that say NY or Mass get therefore there are far less fish feeding on these massive schools of pogies.

[MG39]

MG39, you've just touched on one of the great mysteries surrounding menhaden in Maine. Conventional wisdom and most magazine articles suggest that they make excellent bait and stripers routinely feed on the large schools. I've only had luck on chunked pogies and haven't seen schools of stripers attacking them en masse. I know they do to the south, but for some reason in Maine it's different.

I haven't had good luck with either chunk pogies or mackerel. I don't like whole mackerel fished live either. I like to numb them, hook in the back like ice fishing and let the surf move them around on a home made bobber rig. When I fished them live, I found them swimming back to the boat all the time. lol
Last year, I had one of my best years in the past six or seven years at the coast. I went through those past years with  terrible striper fishing. I noticed that although the stripers didn't seem to feed on the pogies, there was a very large presence of juvenile bait, I guess it was herring? I fish near one of the major tern breeding grounds and they sure had plenty to eat.  The ledges fished well with tinker mackerel drifted in the surf. Between my smelt fishing in the winter and the stripers, the salt side has been good to me.

[fish wayniac]

I’m not a fan using pogies for live bait from shore for stripers. I have caught them while jigging for Mack’s and pollack and they  put up quite a fight on light tackle. When they are busting it was easy to cast and hook up. I had no hook ups when live lining them but they sure did move my balloon bobber. Ha ha!

[fishless12]

Good points all around. some people like to cut the tails off on the mackerel so they don't swim as fast. On a charter, I usually fish one line live and the rest chunks. Sometimes it seems to matter if it's alive, sometimes they're lazy and prefer dead bait. It also makes the mackerel in the livewell last much longer.

[woodchip1]

I always fished a Mackerel chunk with a bobber just enough to keep it off bottom away from Crabs. Hook placement in a chunk gave a better chance to hook solid with out a long run. a whole fish bait reduced hook ing chances

[canoeist]

Like most things, it's more complicated than meets the eye. The Atlantic States Maritime Service sets the total allowable catch (TAC) for the entire east coast. A portion of the TAC is allocated to the State. Fishermen participate in different categories of fishing based on the scale of their effort. The largest boats are limited more so by the State's management of the TAC than their daily limits, which are enormous. When a certain amount of the TAC is caught, the largest scale fishery is shutdown. There is a smaller scale fishery that is allowed to continue with a limit of 6,000 lbs per day. This wouldn't really pay the bills for the largest boats, but might make sense for lobstermen trying to catch their own bait, with possibly some extra to sell to their friends.

What's crazy is that the State is allocated a VERY small portion of the Menhaden (pogie) TAC compared to the mid Atlantic States and one company called Omega Protein. Omega Protein harvests pogies on an enormous scale and uses them for fish meal, cosmetics and other products.

In other words, recreational fishermen love to look around at a lobstermen using a small gill net or seine and say "see they're catching all the pogies and the stripers and tuna aren't going to have anythinng left to eat!" When you could point to the larger boats as the ones who are 'catching all the fish' it's actually the other states and particularly Omega responsible for the lions share of the harvest. This year the herring TAC was cut significantly, so it's likely that more and more lobstermen will be trying to catch their own bait.

https://www.maine.gov/dmr/laws-regulations/regulations/index.html

The quota is an allocation and as Maine sees more Pogies they increase the limit by transferring their quota here and taking millions more pounds. Ive already heard shannigans about the amount taken versus the amount reported especially around the episodic events.

You can place blame to other states regarding the taking of Menhaden so what about the taking of herring? How did we end up here?

Quotas keep getting transferred north and episodic events keep getting triggered.

[fishless12]

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for protecting baitfish. I've been involved in Party and Charterfishing for groundfish for almost 20 years and know the role that herring play. As far as herring quota is concerned, the truth is it's too hard to count the fish in the ocean, and when you have a fleet that's as effective as they (primarily midwater trawlers) are, there isn't much of a buffer against over fishing. I know the bait shortages will generate hardship among lobstermen, although many alternatives are being pursued. I'm excited to see what the reduction in herring fishing will mean for groundfish, tuna, stripers, etc.

Interestingly, one of the measures at least being talked about is a reduction in the trap limit for lobstermen as a measure to use less bait. This would likely lead to a higher price for lobsters with fewer traps being hauled, which could ease some of the pain for lobstermen. Many lobstermen I've talked with believe that there are presently too many traps being fished, and while the inherent inefficiencies of lobster traps means that they aren't at risk for over fishing, they are at the point of diminishing return, in other words the catch per trap has long since peaked. 

Also compounding the problem is the fact that Maine's groundfish landings and processing is a fraction of what it once was (because of reduced landings from the fishery as a whole, and a greater portion of whats left being landed elsewhere) This means that there aren't nearly as many racks (what's left after you filet a fish) available for use as lobster bait.

There is presently an effort to use invasive carp from the midwest. Provided they can insure disease won't be spread by wholesale transfer of these fish, it sounds like a good idea.