Eye of the Cormorant

another odd bird who chases fish.

Tag: photography

  • Annoying the fish

    When I took up fishing again after a 50 year hiatus, my wife Gray was bewildered: “Phil, you’ve spent your whole career being nice to fish. Why do you suddenly want to be mean to them?”

    I could say I went fishing for the spectacular sunrises and experience of nature, but Gray would quickly note that I could get up at 3:30 am to be on Florida Bay for the sunrise, spend the morning watching shorebirds, manatees, dolphins, rays, and sharks, and come home to enjoy lunch and a nap, all while leaving the fish in peace.

    So hers is a fair question. I studied electric fish and mosquitofish for 35 years at Cornell and FIU. I had a massive fish-rearing facility on the roof of my building where our fish bred because we made them so happy. An undercover plant from PETA worked as a technician in my lab for a few months then left because he couldn’t find any evidence that we were inhumane in our treatment of fish. I definitely don’t want to be mean to fish.

    So, yes, my love of fishing embodies a patent contradiction in my values. I truly love all the wild things and trying to catch fish. I especially enjoy chasing fish with a fly rod, widely recognized as the least efficient way to actually catch a fish.

    With that bed of nettles as our background, let’s relocate temporarily to the site of the sunrise photo, a seagrass flat in Florida Bay, two miles south of the Flamingo Marina in Everglades National Park. In a future essay, I’ll tell you all the reasons you should NOT fish there, but this day I will share some of its magic.

    Here’s the flat surrounding a mangrove key a few minutes after sunrise. This light always enchants me. Look for a moment and you’ll see the water is pink dimpled with dark blue, far prettier to my eye than Christo’s famous pink island wrapping.

    The water surface reflects the sky at low sun angles so my iPhone camera can’t see into the water to document for you how the fish are going about their morning activities. That would require a circular polarizer on my iPhone (wait, look it up… PolarPro makes a good one). But I’m up on the poling platform of my skiff this morning wearing polarized sunglasses. You’ll have to trust me when I tell you what fish I’m seeing and what they are doing.

    Mullet are flipping and splooshing in the shallows, while egrets line up to try for the small ones. From the key comes the hollow whinny of a Bald Eagle, the raucous clatter of a Mangrove Clapper Rail, and the sweet song of a Yellow Warbler. Against the key lies a deeper channel where I spot a nice redfish but I won’t try for it. A five foot lemon shark cruises the channel, not far behind. Hooking a snook or redfish in any channel at Flamingo is tantamount to feeding a shark. I do not feed sharks or alligators, for similar reasons.

    Two juvenile Goliath Groupers, about 18” long, are out in the open on the flat. Young Goliaths normally spend their days holed up in the mangroves, roving the flat at night. But here they are in the light of day.I watch to see what these young groupers will do when they’re caught out in their pj’s with a flats skiff poling towards them. When I get closer, they panic and swim to the nearest clump of red mangroves, sticking their heads in the roots and leaving their mottled brown and black bodies sticking out in the open. With their heads concealed, they can’t see me, so I guess I’m not supposed to see them either, but they look thoroughly silly.

    Two young redfish with light gold bodies and blue tails are cruising the shoreline. I pitch a sparkly spoon fly in front of them, then retrieve it. One redfish starts to follow the fly, then changes its mind and wanders back to cruise with its friend. A different fly might have worked better, but which one? Unlike a rising trout that feeds for a while in one spot while the flyfisher tries one fly after another, a flats fish on the move rarely affords a second chance.

    The edge of the flat becomes a reverse shower of small jacks taking to the air. Underneath the water, I presume, a school of large jacks roars through the water in hot pursuit. In fifteen seconds, the water is still once again. It’s a fish-eat-fish world on the flats.

    I round the corner of the key and the glassy water surface erupts and goes still in alternation. Silver tails appear briefly and disappear. A school of juvenile tarpon is actively feeding on baitfish.

    The prey this morning is a school of anxious young mangrove snappers that’s holding in one area. To my happy surprise, the tarpon are cruising back and forth to take multiple shots at the bait school and affording me a parallel opportunity with my fly rod.

    I throw a black tarpon fly in front of the advancing tarpon with no success. The same fly worked last week in murky water four miles to the east, but the water here today is clear. Oh, right. Light-colored flies work better in clear water than dark patterns because fish (including baitfish) in clear water change to lighter, more reflective body colors for better camouflage. I knew that. The tarpon will be coming back soon for another pass at the snappers, so I remove the black fly and select a big gray & white snook fly that I tied but never put in front of a fish. If I stretch my imagination, this fly  could resemble a young mangrove snapper. It looks very fishy in the water and it’s not black.

    I attach this snook fly to the heavy tarpon-proof bite tippet on my leader, and cast it in front of the tarpon school. To complete the illusion of a small fish finding itself in the wrong place at the wrong time, I make the fly attempt an escape. It works. One of the larger tarpon breaks from the school and grabs the hapless fly. I set the hook, but the tarpon doesn’t seem to care. The lining of a tarpon’s mouth is as tough as Kevlar – I’ve seen a tarpon consume a whole blue crab without chewing. But, feeling the line resistance, the tarpon forcibly yanks some fly line from my left hand and swims back into formation in the school. I restore tension on the line, putting a good arc into the 7-weight fly rod. The tarpon resists for a moment, then jumps clear of the water, snapping its body back and forth in the air and creating the slack needed to neatly toss my fly.

    You normally drop the rod tip when a tarpon jumps, precisely to keep it from creating that line slack, but I kept light tension on specifically to help the tarpon escape. More on that in a moment.

    Free of the leader’s encumbrance, the young tarpon, roughly 10 pounds’ worth, once again resumes its position in the school as the members continue their search for yummy little mangrove snappers.

    * * *

    Even though a fish’s face doesn’t change with mood, I swear this tarpon glared with an annoyed expression in its whole body. Perhaps it was in the way it shouldered loose some free line and went back to what it was doing before. It was never so clear that my hard earned fly-fishing skills, such as they are, do indeed annoy the fish.

    When a woman sends me a message like this, it stings. Same with a fish it turns out. I didn’t spend 35 years studying fish behavior to no effect.

    Increasingly, I compromise, seeking a bite on the fly then a self-release at a distance.

    When a fish takes a fly that I tied myself, I delight at having completed the illusion. My heart skips a beat at the sudden appearance of weight and power on the other end of the fly line gripped in my left hand. If I’m lucky, the fish makes a fast initial run, and maybe, if it’s the right species, it makes a couple of spectacular jumps. If it’s a new species for me, I want to see it up close and take a photo to remember it better. But for familiar species I do what I can to help the fish pitch the fly and get on with its fish life, ideally without my having to net and unhook it.  

    We’ll see how that deal sits with me. And, I suppose, with the fish.

    © Philip Stoddard

  • Dodging Keraunos on the flats at Flamingo

    Zeus used his lightning bolt “Keraunos”, a gift from Cyclops, to exercise divine authority over the sky and weather, wielding Keraunos in divine retribution as he saw fit (perhaps inspiration for you-know-who and his black Sharpie, only more final and definitive).

    I launched the skiff out of Flamingo before sunrise with the triple intent of (1) trying my new used Spey rod around actual fish, (2) seeing if small dark-colored paddletails, gifts from a friend, might pull a redfish out of the mangroves, and (3) not getting struck by lightning from any among the squadron of thunderheads coursing the flats.

    I fished wherever the storm cells were not, motoring away from every encroaching squall to the nearest patch of clear sky.

    Results:

    1. The two-handed Spey rod works. I caught four speckled seatrout, some ladyfish, and a catfish on assorted flies while Spey casting from the skiff’s poling platform.  Wind is not a serious problem.
    2. Throwing the tiny dark paddletail into the mangrove roots, I hooked a redfish, but it came off as I got it to the boat. That happens. But the tiny paddletail works as intended.
    3. I had to move around a lot, and could not fish where/when I wanted, but the outboard let me dodge the electric storms. One can’t do that in a kayak.
    This seatrout ate Tim Borski’s Mackerel Shrimp pattern.

    It turned out to be a pretty good day for bird- and fish-watching despite the ominous weather.

    I spotted this Mangrove Clapper Rail peering out from its secretive world.

    Mangrove Clapper Rail, Snake Bight ENP

    Roseate Spoonbills foraged on the adjacent flat. I counted 67 of them. When you find feeding spoonbills, the snook are usually close by, foraging on the same small fish and crustacea.

    The wind picked up, but no lightning, and then it rained. Between the wind, rain, and holding the boat steady in the tide coursing the shallow and narrow channel, the elemental chaos was too much for fly casting. With a spinning rod I still managed three snook in the low 20-something-inch range, just what the spoonbills had predicted.

    After the rain moved out, I paused to watch a Reddish Egret scampering after a shoal of baitfish. The one in this video I found at Key Biscayne, but it gives you a sense of their hyperactive hunting style.

    While I watched the antics of the egret, something to the right of it caught my eye. A snook was working its way below the surface, sneaking toward the same bait school as the egret, but from the other direction. They came closer and closer together until the snook made its move, charging the baitfish and showering the egret with spray. The surprised egret jumped into the air, flapping to land several feet back. Wish I’d gotten a video, but I was too mesmerized by the impending collision to reach for a camera.

    Three bull sharks formed a mullet-hunting party. After the trio dispersed around me, this six-footer came close enough to get a video.

    Keep your hands in the boat.

    With that many sharks hunting in the water, it’s time to wind it up.

    © Philip Stoddard

  • Peas Porridge

    Peas porridge hot. Peas porridge cold...

    The Butterfly Peacock Bass (Cichla ocellaris), or “pea” for short, is not a bass at all, but rather a cichlid (pronounced “sic-lid”) from the Guianas and Brazil.

    In our version of the song “I know an old lady who swallowed a fly” Peacock Bass were introduced to South Florida waters to control the Oscar, an invasive exotic cichlid from Africa. Now we have plenty of both.

    The Oscar is a hard fighting fish. Also hard-biting. I learned the hard way not to skinny-dip at night near the Oscar in our pond.

    These exotic cichlids are fine game fish: strong, ferocious, and beautiful. Most people fish for them with live bait. Peas are partial to shiners, but I chase them with a 5-weight fly rod.

    Like most pressured fish, peas in public waters become educated and discriminating. They’ve seen it all. The farther from a road one ventures into the Everglades, the easier it is to catch them. But late last December, a hard cold snap hit the Everglades waters and killed 98% of the peas. These tropical beauties survived in the warmer urban canals and lakes, but it will take a few years for them to recolonize the Everglades.

    Though it’s hard to beat fishing in the Everglades, I had a backup spot for peas at a private suburban lake in a gated community not far my house. Two sets of friends reside there and grant me access. The lake is posted “no fishing”, but folks fish off their backyard docks, and nobody minds me fishing the heavily treed east side, since I release what I catch. One resident told me: “That’s a FLY ROD. You have my utmost respect.”  Ooo.

    The peas on this lake have gotten steadily fussier, but since I’m the only one tossing flies at them, I probably have no one to blame for their education but myself.  

    In the beginning, they’d readily devour an olive-over-orange Clouser Deep Minnow, even competing to be the first to grab it.

    Cichlid candy, the olive-over-orange Clouser Deep Minnow. Prior to the recent cold snap, you could not throw this fly in an Everglades canal without catching a cichlid fish of one species or another. They’ll recover in time.

    Then the magic wore off. My “can’t fail” fly would get weak follows, but no eats. In frustration, I devised a fly that looked like a baby Mayan Cichlid, one of the pea’s favorite treats. Sometimes on a cold day, a sluggish pea would take that big fly, thinking it a big reward for a small effort. Wrong this time, but generally a winning idea.

    Baby Mayan Cichlid fly.

    Yes, I pretend to know what fish think. Some fish, some of the time. I studied fish behavior for 35 years, long enough to learn some things about their thought processes, and long enough to be unsure about anything I think they think.

    [Ursula Le Guin noted: “Few people know what fish think about injustice, or anything else.” ]

    When the peas stopped eating my flies altogether, it was time to pay closer attention to what they WERE eating.

    They were stalking and ambushing mosquitofish shoals.

    Eastern Mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki). A pregnant female.

    A famous fly pattern already existed for mosquitofish. Mike Connor invented his Glades Minnow fly to catch snook and juvenile tarpon feeding on mosquitofish in late summer and fall along the Tamiami Trail. But, since every fish in the Everglades eats mosquitofish, it worked on those too.

    My tie of Connor’s Glades Minnow

    I tried Connor’s Glades Minnow on these peas, and it worked great for about two days, then zip.

    How does this happen? There must be something like 400+ mature peas in this lake. If I catch 20, I can see those 20 not eating the same fly again. But why do the other 380 now refuse it as well? 

    Maybe they learn from their friends. My grad student, Ben Sager, studied observational learning among fish in the lab (mosquitofish, no less) and found that they do learn about safe food sources from their buddies. Other researchers have found similar effects in other fish species.

    Alternately, maybe these 380 peas were already “line shy” from a prior encounter with a different fly or a lure fished from a dock, and wouldn’t have eaten this fly or any other tempting object dragged behind a fishing line. Even if one fishes super-transparent lines (e.g., thin fluorocarbon) a fish can use their mechanoreceptor system (neuromasts in the head and the lateral line system that runs the lengths of the body) to feel the water disturbance caused by those lines. One get more eats on thinner lines, but more break-offs too.

    Not ready to give up, I spent the next couple of months devising and testing a fly that’s converging on a near perfect mosquitofish mimic. To make it more tempting, I chose a pregnant female mosquitofish as my model (photo above). Mosquitofish are live bearers, like their relatives the guppies and mollies. Pregnant ones are slower and extra nutritious.

    The fly’s construction borrows from the Clouser Deep Minnow and the Glades Minnow, with a few unique features that better match the real thing.

    My mosquitofish fly needs a catchy name. Suggestions welcomed.

    Once I got the size and details right (small with concealed flash to reproduce the abdominal iridescence), the fly worked brilliantly. It didn’t matter how I fished it. The fly could swim casually, take off in a panic, sit on the bottom, or hang motionless in the water column – a big pea would grab it.

    I’d even go back and try other flies for comparison and the peas would ignore those while still eating the mosquitofish fly.

    Other fish species liked it too. Everything eats mosquitofish.

    Midas Cichlid (Amphilophus citrinellus) endemic to Costa Rica, is naturalized in the waters around Miami. That’s a mosquitofish fly in its mouth.

    And then it happened. The peas stopped eating this fly too.

    This morning, for example, I probably saw 30 peas, but no pea would even approach the fly unless it swam away from them in apparent fear. Of the first five that took the escaping fly, I caught zero. They were short-striking, a sign of hesitancy. I caught other fish on the same fly with no difficulty: Midas and Mayan Cichlids and a Bluegill Sunfish.

    It took two hours to get a couple of big peas to take the fly in full eat mode. By that time I was sweaty, had retrieved flies from underwater snags and overhead branches, had scraped my arm sliding down the slippery layer of casuarina (Australian pine) needles on the bank, had cinched a tight figure-8 knot in my leader, and my last two flies had been chewed to bits. The usual wear & tear.

    Another possibility is that the peas aren’t eating mosquitofish right now. The lake is full of baby cichlids, all of which have grown larger than the dinky mosquitofish, so perhaps those are top summer fare. Come winter, mosquitofish may return to the menu. Fingers crossed.

    I am planning to uncross my fingers and tie up another batch of mosquitofish flies. Not being one to underestimate the power of education, I can’t help wondering if they have a future.

    © Philip Stoddard, 2025