Back in 2007 while I was working on boats down at Seattle's Elliot Bay
Marina, on the north end of the bay, I saw an amazing sight- a huge Herring
ball!
But they weren't really Herring, and not really a ball. I wrote about it
on tweeters somewhere, but not on the month I saw the phenom. Its in the
Archives somewhere.

Anyhoo, I just found out I blew the I,D. on that one, and I'd be remiss If
I didn't note my boo - boo. Plus I'm excited about having a new fish
species on my list.

What I saw, on the 4th of July, was a big torus (like a tall doughnut ) of
silvery fish. It was dead calm with no surface glare so I got an awesome
view of these fish, swimming counterclockwise in a big circle about 12 to
15 feet across with a hole in the middle.The school of fish went down about
12 ft or more. Around and around they went. I was supposed to be working,
so I went back to the job, but came back an hour later and they were still
going at it.

I was just looking thru my fish books and found out that what I saw were
Northern Anchovies. This description from Coastal Fishes of the Pacific
Northwest (Lamb & Edgell) fit what I saw to a T:

"Watch a specimen as it feeds and see it open it's large mouth to
seize planktonic morsels. During feeding, the fish's lower jaw drops and
its head seems almost to fall apart - a spectacular sight when an entire
school is foraging in unison."

Yup, that's what I saw and it was spectacular. All those big - mouthed
silvery fish gulping away.

Well, that's enough for fish. Here in the yard my mom's big Fuchsia
Magellanica is just starting to bloom. The flowers haven't opened yet, but
that didn't stop a male Anna's Hummer from sniffing around. They jumped the
gun earlier in the year with the Red- flowering Currant too. Can't hardly
wait, I guess.

Jeff Gibson
Port Townsend Wa
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