The Bunker
By Robert Maina

      You’re fishing a bright beautiful morning and you start to see gulls, terns and cormorants wheeling and screeching overhead. Then you see silvery flashes and the water exploding as huge bluefish tear through schools of bunker. Down below, the weakfish and bass wait to gobble the chunks left by the bluefish that have now gorged themselves. The birds and the other anglers have attracted the attention of a spotter plane who works for a multi-million dollar corporation, solely in the business of catching bunker.
     The Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) is a member of the herring family, Clupiedae, but unlike shad and river herring, they spawn in the ocean and their young develop and grow in the less saline waters of estuaries to feed on the rich supply of plankton. The Atlantic menhaden is found in coastal and estuarine waters from Nova Scotia to northern Florida. This small, up to 15 inches long, blue-black fish with metallic flanks and deeply forked tail is the favorite food for striped bass, bluefish, sea trout, tuna and shark. Indians of pre-colonial America called the fish "munnawhatteaug," which means "fertilizer," and menhaden are probably what the Indians urged the pilgrims to plant along with their corn seed. Although in the colonial period some considered the fish a delicacy, most agree today that the oily and bony menhaden is better left off the dinner table.
      Menhaden are common in all salinities of the Chesapeake Bay, swimming in large schools close to the water’s surface during the spring, summer and fall. Individuals swim in close schools and follow a single fish for a period, after which the leader drops back and another takes over. Throughout the spring, the schools separates by size and age along the coast so that by the summer, younger and smaller fish are found in Chesapeake Bay and south while the older, larger fish are distributed to the north. During the fall and early winter, most menhaden migrate south to the North Carolina capes, where they remain until March and early April.