At the bottom of my letterhead there's this tagline: "When the going gets tough…the tough go fishing."
Sometimes the tough-going is the fishing. Especially when it's the middle of winter, the river is eight feet high and muddy, and you're a hungry great blue heron looking for a way to catch your next meal and without getting accidentially swept away by the strong current.
The answer? You flap over to a certain outdoor scribbler's yard and skulk along the edge of his usually too-high bank which just now happens to be perfectly convenient for allowing a long-necked bird to stab anything that looks edible in the water's edge. Plus you get to keep your feet dry!
Hey, all good fishermen are resourceful…
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| Lemmie see…I think this is the path to the water. |
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Okay, gotta be really sneaky now, don't want
them dadgum minnows to spook.
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| Here fishy fishy fishy…here fishy fishy fishy…here fishy fishy fishy… |
12 comments:
And amongst good fishermen he has got to be the best!
I can spend long periods of time with my heron friends. Last Sunday, on a trip down to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, I spent about forty-five minutes with a great blue who seem to welcome my company. We were both fishing, I suppose, he for one thing and I for another.
Very nice images, Grizz. For two years, we had a Great Blue Heron that routinely stalked upland meadows and Kali and I often saw it catch voles, mice and small snakes. (I may have mentioned this before...) Anyway, we haven't seen it for a few years now, but it certainly was a surprise the first time we saw it skulking through tall meadow grasses.
Priceless.....and for everything else there's Master card :-)
Love Gail
peace.....
Weaver…
He's indeed proficient. While I was shooting these photos, I saw him grab a small fish and summarily gobble it…though his back was turned and and much of the time his head was down, so nothing much showed in the images, which is why didn't include one.
George…
I couldn't begin to guess—nor would I want to admit—how much time I spend heron watching. I see them every day, practically all the time. In winter, when much of the river is frozen (not this winter!) the several riffles—one adjacent to, and two others downstream from the cottage—provide the necessary open water, and draw GB herons like magnets. Usually territorial and relentless in defending their favorite fishing waters, they seem to sense the gravity of the situation and relax their resistance to interlopers. I've regularly counted well over a dozen herons all fishing the same water.
Not to get too squirrelly about it…but I find there's something special about great blue herons—a presence and overall calmness, almost spiritual, of patience, focus, intent. They're so skilled in what they do, and somehow seem wise in ways that we can almost…yet never quite…fathom. I can easily understand why they've long been revered, a totemic bird among many people. As a fellow angler, I feel a great kinship with them. But at the same time, I'm also aware in watching, of a sense of something akin to philosophy.
Scott…
I've read of such heron behavior—and I believe you did reiterate it to me, too—but have never witnessed it myself. It is certainly something I'd truly love to see.
I did get a call a some years back from a farmer in the county west of here who reads my columns and wanted me to come look at a number of strange tracks—both in snow and mud—he kept finding in one of his remote fields. They were, as best I could tell, and I'm almost positive I was right, great blue heron tracks. I've seen a few sandhill crane imprints, plus most of the similar-sized birds, including things like bitterns and egrets, which sometimes visit hereabouts—and, of course, a lifetime of great blue heron tracks when I've fished and rambled every river, creek, lake or pond I could find.
When I told the fellow that I'd read how GB herons sometimes "fish" for mice and voles in fields, he looked at me as though I'd lost my mind. I figured well, scratch that reader off my list. But a month later he called, all excited, because he'd been sneaking up on this field every chance he got, and that morning, he'd flushed a great blue heron from smack in the middle. So I called it, but never got to see it. Yet. But I'm still looking and hoping.
Gail…
Yep. And if his MasterCard gets declined, he'll just stand up tall and stab at your eyes until you feed him. Sort of like Myladylove does when I'm late in getting our meals ready.
Oh, brilliant photos. I chuckled at your captions, too.
Thankfully, I work in an office where people stop what they’re doing to gather ‘round for a bird sighting. Lately we’ve been watching a Belted Kingfisher, perched on a branch overhanging the Scioto. We speculated on how he fishes when water is high, fast, and muddy. We didn’t come up with an answer but he must know what he’s doing, since he’s returned to the same perch for several weeks.
Jain…
Well, my one-man office requires neither consent nor excuse for staring out the window, and some days I do it by the hour. Kingfishers are almost a common a great blue herons here (though more difficult to photograph) so I watch them pretty often, too. And I've watched them fish, successfully, when the water is high, fast, and muddy. How do they manage? For what it's worth, based on my own angling experience, observations, and considered speculation, here's what I think…
First off, you doubtless know the hydraulics within a stream's water column is not the same from top to bottom. Due to friction, water at the bottom moves slower than water at the surface. Objects such as large stones and boulders, anchored submerged logs, even the contour of the bottom itself impedes and further slows the water near the bottom. This is true whether the stream is at normal pool or high flood.
The law of thermodynamics applies to fish and their individual survival. The slower the current, the fewer calories a fish has to expend holding in place. So when they're not actively feeding, a lot of fish species rest/hold on or near the bottom. A lot, but not all—some minnows and rough species like the shallow edges where the current is also lessened because of friction and configuration. And as a stream rises, it's edges moving outward with expansion, these minnows and the like follow…and so do the things which prey upon them. I know this first hand because a savvy catfisherman looks at high, muddy water as an opportunity to catch lots of big channel cats, since channel catfish—which feed extensively on minnows—follow their favorite food and move into the expanding shallows. And I mean right up against the bank, within a few inches out to maybe a foot or two. That's where the minnows are and so, naturally, the stalking hungry channel cats. (And yes, the first few times you catfish these conditions, you feel decidedly foolish dunking your bait a foot beyond the toes of your boots…but your self-esteem quickly rises with every tasty catfish you put on the stringer.)
When you think about it, the edge of even the fastest-moving high-water stream still has those little indentations and pockets which offer slack water, affording minnows a place of refuge and rest. That's why on many occasions I've seen the backs of really big channel cats actually out of the water as they cruised along the brushy edge of a flooded stream. They know exactly where to look for a meal. And—to finally get to the point and answer the question—these minnows, in their course of milling about just under the surface, can't help but break the surface or come close enough from time to time to reveal their presence to a feathered fisherman standing on the bank or perched on a limb overlooking the water's edge. That's what kingfishers and herons rely on, and how they succeed. My theory, anyway.
Wow! Just wow!
Robin…
Is that a high-water wow…or a heron in the yard wow? Or just an overall one-size-fits-all wow? No matter, thank you. I think.
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