The Most Important Fish in the Sea

Two remarkable resources have come my way since the last blog posting, "Diving on Pogies." One reader writes, "our nephew up in Maine has been on the prowl with his new drone.  We thought you might like a different peek at pogie fishing.  Unless this cormorant is doing a lot of underwater feeding, it looks like the fish are winning." Take a peek from this overhead view, of a hard-working cormorant repeatedly and unsuccessfully diving on pogies. As illogical as it may seem to you and me, their concentration in a school may actually be making it harder for the hunter to 'catch a fish in a barrel' by somehow confusing the predator with plenitude, as is also said of flocking birds and insects.

Striped bass attacking a pogey school along the Halibut Point shoreline

Such a defensive strategy may backfire when pogies are attacked by mackerel, bluefish, or striped bass, which slash their way wantonly through a school, leaving lacerated victims for secondary diners.

Gannet plunge-diving

High-flying gannets roam the skies in search of pogey schools, with a view similar to the drone of those dense submarine shadows. The bird's dive takes it well below the surface and capable of swimming under water in pursuit of the fish.

A title with a startling assertion

The second astonishing resource I've referred to in regard to pogies (menhaden) is the book The Most Important Fish in the Sea. Its subtitle, Menhaden and America, doesn't make it onto the cover of the book because so few people have ever heard of or seen this fish, and none of us has eaten it directly. The book is a story full of ecological revelations and consequences, which will be the subject of our next postings.