Savvy Anglers Follow Birds To Find Fish

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Savvy Anglers Follow Birds To Find Fish

Frank Sargeant

Louisiana Heron. Birds like this heron can tip you off to spots where baitfish gather--and where there's bait, there are often gamefish

By FRANK SARGEANT | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 28, 2009

Most anglers don't take bird-watching too seriously. But they should.

Florida has more fish-eating birds than any other state. But to eat regularly, these birds have to be very good at finding fish--a whole lot better than most recreational anglers.

A lot of smart fishermen have learned to keep an eye out for particular bird species behaving in particular ways as clues to where their scaly targets might be hiding.

Imagine trying to catch a fish dinner with your mouth and you get some idea of how effective birds have to be as fish-finders. They have to be in the right spot at the right time, every day, or they don't eat.

Fortunately, given their instincts and their airborne vantage point, sea birds and waders alike rarely go hungry. Here's a look at what their behavior can tell you about where to fish:

PELICANS

Brown pelicans eat baitfish from an inch to a foot long. They're always hungry, and they're found from well inland on coastal rivers up to about 15 miles offshore.

When they're sitting on the surface, swimming in a tight flock and darting their bills into the water, it's usually a sign they're feeding on tiny glass minnows. If you're looking for Spanish mackerel, small bluefish or trout and you find pelicans working on this species, you're likely to be in luck.

When pelicans take flight only to crash back to the surface almost immediately, they may be chasing scaled sardines, particularly if the birds are working over the outer edges of a shallow grass flat. Sardines are a target in their own right for most inshore fishermen, because they're the prime live bait for most bay species. And where there are lots of sardines you often find trout, snook and reds.

When pelicans are climbing high in the sky, then diving back to the water with great force, shooting their beaks deep on contact, they're probably chasing threadfins or menhaden, favorite foods of king mackerel and bonito as well as favorite baits of kingfish anglers. You see this behavior most often in the larger passes and off the beaches early in the day.

WADING BIRDS
Of the wading birds, the great blue heron is the best of the fishy bird dogs because it eats large baitfish, and is very good at finding them in the same areas that gamefish prowl.

Along the coast, great blues are often found at creek mouths on falling tide, where they spear needlefish, killifish, nile perch and other bait species escaping the shallows with the dropping water.

They also take position on the rocks at the end of smaller coastal passes, again on falling tides. And rising water is likely to find them wading deep mangrove shorelines.

Savvy anglers who toss a lure or live bait into the same areas fished by the herons are likely to be rewarded with snook, redfish or jacks.

In fresh water, the big herons catch eels, frogs, snakes, bluegills and shiners, all favorites of largemouth bass. The birds feed at creek mouths after a rain, and hard-bottom weed points with about 2 to 3 feet of water at other times. These spots are also very likely bassing locations.

Incidentally, blue herons are very possessive of their feeding stations, and regularly chase lesser birds away. One captain reports that he was cleaning fish at an Anclote River dock a while back when a pelican waddled in front of a heron that was cadging scraps from the cleaning table. The heron pecked the pelican on the wing and ran it off the first time, but the hungry pelican soon returned. This time, the heron took aim and darted it's dagger-like bill squarely into the head of the other bird.

"The pelican went down like it had been struck by lightning," the captain reported. "It never twitched a feather."

Lesser herons like the little blue and the all-white American egret also feed on baitfish, though they usually catch smaller baits than the great blue. But any area where you see three or four of the little birds capturing minnows is worth a few casts. They're very good at finding "active" shorelines, areas where the tide is flowing strongly, moving baits in close to the edge to avoid the current, and they move to follow the peak of the tide. By moving with them, you can often stay on fish for several hours.

OFFSHORE BIRDS
The greatest offshore bird-dog of all is the frigate bird, sometimes called the man-o-war. These black ocean prowlers drift like kites, sometimes 50 miles out or more, hanging above marlin, tuna or dolphin that they know will eventually lead them to food.

The feeding strategy of the frigate depends on baits being attacked from below. When the big gamefish push ballyhoo or other baits to the surface, the bird swoops down and makes its catch.

For this reason, no offshore skipper can resist pulling his trolling rigs under a frigate. Many times, the strategy pays off.

The ubiquitous herring gull is also a fish-finder, though it usually feeds on relatively small baits including glass minnows. Gulls frequently locate baits pushed to the surface by mackerel, ladyfish or jacks in the larger bays including Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor, and because their whirling white wings can be seen at considerable distances as they swoop and dive above the bait, they're very obvious fish-finders. Best time to spot them is just after daylight, when they all leave land to feed.

Nearly every bird that makes its living around the water has a few secrets for the angler, right down to the tiny waders that dart along the beach, catching sand fleas and incidentally revealing good areas to fish for pompano.

They're all part of Nature's enormous book, and those who take the time to read the fine print might find this sort of bird-watching much to their liking.##

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