One of the RI Marine Scientists indicated that the large menhaden might be offshore and prefer not to move inshore. But we get the nuts every year strong. Would it be that these couple hundred thousand pogies that come into the bay every spring leave their eggs before getting sucked up by Arc bait? Or would a couple years of a commercial no take policy inside the bay be enough to develop a large returning menahden population. Who knows, maybe if they were left alone here for a few years a local reocurring population would be resident here.
I seem to recall a deal made a few years back that Arc Bait had made an agreement, perhaps with some people from RISAA that they would not go into certain proptions of the bay to net menhaden. But then I heard that the agreed on areas not to net were not big netting areas anyway. I'm very vague and that is a combination of both hearsay and bad memory, so take it for what it is worth
