Atlantic Menhaden
Brevoortia tyrannus — also called bunker, pogy
Bunker — the oily, schooling forage fish that feeds the Bay's striped bass, bluefish, and cobia, cast-netted or snagged for bait rather than fished for.
Typically present
Photo: Oleg Yunakov — CC BY-SA 4.0
- Habitat
- Atlantic surf, Chesapeake Bay
- Methods
- Inshore boat
- Difficulty
- intermediate
- Eating
- fair
Identification
Look for
- Small (up to about 15"), deep-bodied, silvery schooling fish related to herring and shad
- Forms massive, often surface-visible schools — anglers regularly ask what the huge schooling fish they see actually are
- A single dark spot on the shoulder just behind the gill cover, sometimes with smaller secondary spots trailing it
Local waters
- Massive open-water schools, often visible at the surface
- Lower Chesapeake Bay and nearshore coastal waters
Primarily a boat fishery here — typically fished by inshore boat.
When to fish
Spring through summer, in massive surface-schooling numbers throughout the lower Chesapeake Bay and coastal waters; migrates away in fall/early winter.
Tide stage for this kind of water
Rising through high, and the first of the fall
From: Reading the surfWater temperature
The water, not the calendar, sets the season here — a warm October or a cold snap moves these bands.
Water temperature and the seasonsHow to catch it
Primarily a boat fishery here — typically fished by inshore boat. Technique notes for this species have not been written yet; the baits and rigs below are the documented starting points.
Bait & lures
- Cast-netted or snagged live/fresh-dead for use as bait — not typically targeted with hook and line itself
On the table
Eat with caution — check current Virginia fish consumption advisories for the specific waterbody before eating.
- The single most important forage fish in the Chesapeake Bay food web — a primary food source for striped bass, bluefish, weakfish, seabirds, and marine mammals, and the base of both a major Virginia commercial reduction fishery (fishmeal/fish oil) and a large bait fishery. Virginia regulates menhaden harvest directly (4VAC20-1270 and related chapters) with separate commercial purse-seine, non-purse-seine bait-sector, and recreational rules — check VMRC's current regulations before large-scale collection.
Where to try
