Hi John and Tweets

Thanks for this post - I can see the whole scene in my mind as you relate it.

Brian H. Bell
Woodinville Wa
mail to: bellasoc at isomedia dot com
----- Original Message -----
From: johntubbs at comcast.net
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2006 12:23 PM
Subject: [Tweeters] Bird "Fishing"


Hi all,

There have been a couple of posts about catching birds while fishing, and I had to jump in with a story. I have been an avid fly fisherman (some might say maniacal) for a good chunk of my life - probably 30 of my 56 years. In those years, I have caught: a duck, a barn swallow, a bat, a bullfrog, and had a dragonfly persistently attempt to abscond with the dry fly hanging from the end of my rod while walking. Not to worry, all the critters survived intact. The duck story might be of interest to readers...

Some years ago I had occasion to compute on weekends between Seattle and Portland. During trout season, I would always have my fly gear in my vehicle and watch several spots from the freeway - if I saw rising trout, I would pull off and fish for a while. One of these spots was Horseshoe Lake in Woodland, WA. One Friday night I stopped after seeing risers on the lake but didn't have my float tube, so had to cast from shore. The most convenient place to do this was open bank near the park picnic area, which had several groups picknicking. Public park + people = "park ducks" - in this case mallards and mallard hybrids whose entire focus in life was obtaining handouts from park-goers. I was fishing chironimid (midge pupae) imitations, which are often fished in conjunction with a floating "strike indicator" - high falutin' fly fishing jargon for "bobber", a pea-size piece of balsa wood attached to the fly ! line.&n bsp;

The resident park ducks viewed anything that landed on the water as a result of human activity as probably food, so my fishing was complicated by several extraordinarily persistent ducks paddling toward my strike indicator after every cast. So we fell into an inefficient but workable pattern - cast, watch ducks approach, pull line out of water before duck has opportunity to swallow strike indicator, then wait until duck paddles away or move elsewhere to cast and repeat the pattern. All was fine until I waited just a split second too long to pull the line out, and as I was doing so, the quite small (and barbless, for catch and release fishing) hook firmly embedded itself in the very outer layer of skin on the hapless duck's neck. This elicited a loud, surprised QUAAAAACCCCCKKK! from the hen mallard but the second I released line pressure, she proceeded to act perfectly normal - probably unable to feel anything! (sort of the duck equivalent of ear pierc ing?).

Now we had a dilemma. If I cut the line, an expensive proposition for me, the duck would be trailing 30 feet or so of fishing line behind her until the hook rusted or pulled out. If the duck was startled into flying while still hooked to me, we would have had psychological trauma for the duck and terminal embarrassment trauma for me given the proximity of a young kid who was now watching me - and his (large) family in a nearby picnic shelter. So, I opted to use my fishing experience and try to land the duck. Now we had a new pattern - raise the rod and put slight pressure on the line to encourage the duck to swim toward me, duck issues another loud QUAAAACCCCKKKK while moving a few feet closer, release pressure to avoid any urge of the duck to fly off, and...pray that this hairbrained scheme works and that nobody notices the predicament I've managed to get myself in.

All was going well, and covertly, until the young kid who was watching finally grasped what was happening and ran back to his picnic shelter yelling at the top of his lungs, "HEY, MOMMY!!! THAT MAN CAUGHT THAT DUCK WITH HIS FISHING ROD!!!! COME LOOK!" Shortly I had several additional highly amused and smirking adult onlookers, who added to the circus atmosphere by slinging a few 'funny' comments my way. I continued the pressure-QUACK-pull closer-relax pressure routine and in a few minutes had the confused (but totally calm) mallard up on land. One of the picnic goers was kind enough to hand me a piece of bread as a peace offering to the duck as I crept close enough to finally remove the fly. Whereupon the duck resumed normal panhandling activities and I tucked my tail between my legs and beat an ignoble retreat to the car. I never fished Horseshoe Lake again for some reason...!

John Tubbs
Snoqualmie, WA
johntubbs at comcast.net
www.tubbsphoto.com





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