Most of us think of fly-in fishing as using a plane to access
waters not reachable by road. When I was at my other home waters
in Naples, Florida last week, I witnessed how the pro’s do it.
By pro’s, I mean creatures that depend on fishing for their
very existence.
Behind my Florida house is one of those finger lakes that you see
a lot of in Florida. In this community, they scooped out a couple
of hundred acres of swamp in the shape of a bunch of fingers and
built houses around them. Each finger is maybe a quarter mile long
and 50 yards wide. Within a year or so they become filled with all
manner of fish, both natural and planted, from sunfish to bass to
an occasional gater. I do most of my fishing on the beach or from
a flats boat in the mangroves south of Marco Island. I never gave
the lake behind me a second thought.
Last Sunday, I was sitting on the lanai when suddenly a bunch of
very large black and white water birds starting landing. Now we
are use to an occasional great white egret or blue heron wading
along the shore, but not the flock that was landing. In just a few
minutes there were nearly a hundred of them. I checked my bird book
and found they were wood storks. The book said they were a large
white wading bird that is on the endangered list in Florida. I had
to agree with the large part. They were about the size of a great
blue heron but were much stockier. The endangered part was a little
bit of a stretch for me because there were a hundred of them staring
me in the face.
So there they were, standing around the lake doing nothing. Before
you knew it they were joined by eight or ten great white egrets
and as many great blue herons. Just standing there. I thought maybe
there was some sort of convention of wading birds or something.
Then it happened. Coming in low, out of the sun, a flock or
cormorants descended into attack. Straight into the lake they
went at full speed, hitting like a hail of bullets. Within 30
seconds, the placid little lake was turned into a boiling caldron.
Birds diving and coming up with twelve inch fish, swallowing them
in one gulp, and heading back down for another. I could not
believe there were that many fish in this little lake.
Bad day to be a fish. But it was not over. The hapless critters
tried to flee to the shallows next to the shore. Big mistake.
The storks started grabbing them up like cotton candy. But a
stork is not use to such large fare. It took the storks a while
to jiggle the fish around and work it down. Sort of like a bull
snake swallowing a rabbit. All the time they were trying to
swallow the fish, they were vulnerable to the guy next door
who didn’t have a fish. Numerous fights broke out. But everyone
seemed to get something.
But the slaughter was not over. Just when things seemed to be
winding down, nature sent in the dive bombers. For the survivors,
just when they thought it may be safe, they were snatched from
deep water by a creature that only touched the water with his feet.
They would never seen him coming.
Well, so much for catch and release. But you know that this must
happen somewhere in these lakes on a regular basis. And still
there are enough left to propagate the species because there
are still fish all through them. And they are not small.
Here is one of the smaller ones that one of the critters dropped.
I am not really sure whether it is a warmouth or a spotted sunfish.
The mouth is too small for a warmouth bass and the size is too big
(almost 12 inches) for a spotted sunfish. I will check with Florida
DNR for identification. But I tied some small flies and streamers
and I will try out that lake some night. Night fishing down here
can be interesting because some six foot gaters have wandered in
here on occasion.
But the really interesting things are, how did the storks know
the fish were going to school there, how did the cormorants know
know it too, and did the storks tip off the cormorants by standing
round? And who told the eagles? Did any of the birds play off
the actions of the others or was it the fish that attracted them
all independently? ~ Bob Bolton (Bobinmich)
Originally published June 25th, 2007 on Fly Anglers Online by Bob Bolton.