[nancy corigan]

The bunker winter and spawn offshore snapper.

Hope this helps!

Menhaden Background
Ecology & Life History

Atlantic menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) are small (maximum length = 15 inches), schooling fish related to herring, shad, and sardines. Menhaden consume large quantities of phytoplankton and zooplankton, and are themselves a favorite food of striped bass, bluefish, sea trout, tunas, sharks, and sea birds. The species inhabits near-shore waters along the Atlantic seaboard from Nova Scotia southward to central Florida.

Menhaden spawn in the ocean, in shelf waters off Chesapeake Bay from March to May, and again in September and October. The young menhaden drift with currents until they reach a coastal inlet, then work upstream to live for the summer. Larvae use brackish and fresh water inlets and estuaries as nursery areas, where they metamorphose into juveniles and grow rapidly. Menhaden are common in all salinities of Chesapeake Bay during the spring, summer, and fall, swimming in large schools near the water's surface.

Young-of-the-year menhaden leave Chesapeake Bay in late fall and join schools in southward migration. During the fall and early winter, most menhaden migrate south to deeper waters off the North Carolina capes, where they remain until March and early April.

Summer die-offs of large numbers of Atlantic menhaden are common in Chesapeake Bay, mostly associated with episodes of low dissolved oxygen (i.e., dead zones) in Bay waters.

http://www.vims.edu/research/units/p...bout/index.php