Ray Rogers

Ray Rogers Virginia grew up in nearby Hacks Neck, on a waterfront farm where his family worked the land and the Chesapeake Bay. Ray became a Menhaden fisherman after his service in World War II, and soon became a boat captain.

October 4, 2010; 11:36 AM • by RVANews staff

Menhaden Net Building, Mending, and Rigging
Reedville, Virginia

Menhaden fishing has been a significant economic engine on Virginia’s Northern Neck since shortly after the Civil War. Menhaden are bony, oily fish in the herring family. Unfit for human consumption, they have had many practical uses in products such as fertilizer and animal feed, paint, cat food, and fingernail polish. Reedville, Virginia, has long been the center of the menhaden processing industry, although the industry has declined in recent years. Ray Rogers Virginia grew up in nearby Hacks Neck, on a waterfront farm where his family worked the land and the Chesapeake Bay. Ray became a Menhaden fisherman after his service in World War II, and soon became a boat captain. Like others in his community, Ray also worked outside the menhaden season, pound netting and oyster farming. Early in the 1980s, Ray assumed the leadership of a shop that made and rigged Menhaden nets. At eighty-four years old, Ray still helps out in the family menhaden business, operating two menhaden seiners that catch fish for frozen bait that they ship throughout the country.