The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission meets in Newport, Rhode Island, November 9 through 12, and the decision that matters most to East Coast anglers on that agenda is about a baitfish most of them never target. The Menhaden Management Board will take final action on Draft Addendum II, which includes options to cut the Chesapeake Bay reduction fishery cap by as much as 50 percent, and it will consider the coastwide catch limit for the years after 2026.
If you fish for stripers, bluefish, red drum or cobia anywhere from Maine to Florida, this is a striper vote wearing a menhaden name tag.
How we got here
A year ago the same board faced a new ecosystem model indicating menhaden biomass was lower than previously estimated. Conservation and recreational groups pushed for cuts of 50 percent or more. The reduction industry argued for no more than 15. The board landed in the middle: it voted 16 to 2 to cut the 2026 total allowable catch by 20 percent, to 186,840 metric tons from 233,550, and to set only a single year rather than a three-year package.
That one-year choice is why the issue is back. The board said it wanted time for outreach on the new assessment before setting catch limits for 2027 and beyond. That time is up.
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| 2023–2025 coastwide TAC | 233,550 metric tons |
| 2026 coastwide TAC | 186,840 metric tons (−20%) |
| Chesapeake Bay reduction cap (current upper limit) | 51,000 metric tons |
| Largest cap cut under Draft Addendum II | Up to 50% |
| Angler fishing days using menhaden as bait (2025) | 13.9 million |
What is actually being decided
Three separate questions are moving at once, and they are easy to blur together.
The Chesapeake Bay cap. Draft Addendum II deals only with the reduction fishery inside the Bay, which is the largest menhaden nursery on the coast. The options range from leaving the cap alone to cutting it by up to half, and several would spread the harvest across the season rather than letting it concentrate in summer. The addendum was started because pound-net catches inside the Bay have been falling while reduction harvest has bunched up in the warm months.
The coastwide catch limit. Separately, the board is expected to set the total allowable catch for the next cycle. That number covers the bait fishery and the reduction fishery up and down the coast.
State allocation. The board may also decide whether to start reopening how the coastwide quota is divided among states. That would be a multiyear fight on its own, and it is the one that most directly affects how much pressure lands in Virginia waters.
The case for deeper cuts
The recreational side makes two arguments. The ecological one is that menhaden are the forage base for striped bass, and the striper stock is under a rebuilding deadline. Recreational anglers have absorbed slot limits and closed seasons for years to keep striper fishing mortality on target; groups like the American Sportfishing Association argue that leaving forage harvest effectively flat contradicts the commission's own ecosystem-management commitment. As ASA's Mike Waine put it last year, the board cut quota but didn't even cut harvest.
The economic one is newer. A Southwick Associates study estimated anglers used menhaden as bait on 13.9 million fishing days in 2025, with roughly $804 million in spending and more than 7,200 jobs tied to those trips. The argument is that a fish worth that much as bait and forage is undervalued when it is managed mainly as an industrial commodity.
The case against
The reduction industry, bait dealers and much of the New England commercial fleet make an equally direct argument: by the commission's own assessment, Atlantic menhaden are not overfished and overfishing is not occurring. The New England Fishermen's Stewardship Association argued a 10 percent cut would have reduced the probability of overfishing to zero, and called last year's 20 percent unjustified. Virginia's delegates said the socioeconomic cost of cuts falls hardest on one state's working waterfront.
There is also a bait problem anglers on the other side of the argument tend to forget. With herring and mackerel short, menhaden are the main bait for Maine's lobster fishery and much of the coast's crab fishery. The Maine Lobstermen's Association, which welcomed last year's smaller cut, is not a reduction-industry front.
Both arguments use the same assessment. They disagree about what it is for: keeping menhaden from being overfished, or keeping enough menhaden in the water for everything that eats them.
What to watch
The Bay cap is the decision most likely to change something on the water you fish within a season or two, especially if the board spreads harvest out of the summer months, when striped bass and the Bay's other predators need forage most. The coastwide number sets the tone for 2027. The allocation question, if it opens, will run for years.
The public comment period closed October 9. The board meeting itself is public, and ASMFC posts board materials and webinar links in the week before the meeting.
If you fish the fall run, this is one to follow alongside the two new striper rules for 2026. Forage, slot limits and the run itself are one system, the same way falling redfish limits along the Gulf and South Atlantic tie back to what is happening in the estuaries. The Chesapeake is also where Maryland is paying anglers to remove invasive blue catfish, another predator in the same food web, and where the snakehead study put bowfishing on the map.
You do not have to pick between the striper guy and the lobsterman to understand that both of them are about to be affected by the same vote.
Sources: ASMFC; The Fisherman; American Sportfishing Association; National Fisherman; SeafoodSource; Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership; Daily Press/Yahoo.