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Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | The Commorant.
That half fish half bird, snake-like, spear-billed endangered specie we fisherman love to hate, seems to have little if any use in this world except to decimate any and all game fish stocks just the right size to slide down that long neck and into their insatiable gullets. It's this disdain we fishermen have for this specie of fish eating bird that clouds the mind to a degree whenever we see them flying by or on the water in their massive large black rafts, with their serpentine necks and heads just sticking out from the surface of the water. And even for a guy like myself who forever preaches that knowing the ecosystem, environment, the cycles and habits of everything in it and how it functions, can only help in your fishing knowledge and success, can only think of how much I hate this bird and what it does every time I see one.
Of course my opinion of their part in the ecosystem will not change any time soon. They will always have the status of a Blood sucking Mosquito or Lamprey EEL, representing nothing but a useless parasite to me. Yet the way I look at them while fishing might have to change, and heres why. Last Tuesday while I was fishing my guts out, using virtually every technique I could to boat 5 measly walleyes, my buddy was catching 18 dandies trolling 1/4 Tot's and Streaks 40 feet back, off his big boards. He had a spot picked out for the day he wanted to try and as he slowed his boat to graph the area, he found himself in a raft of about 500 Commorant's. His first impulse was to motor back up on plane and continue on. But his graph immediately showed something badly lacking so far this summer on the Saginaw Bay, that being suspended fish and lot's of them. He said he could not get 6 lines in the water for close to an hour for all the fish, and the catching went on for close to two straight miles as he didn't have time to turn the boat around to go back.
The Commorant's were there because the baitfish were there. And the Walleyes were there because of the same thing. Heck who knows, they may even work together to some degree like different ocean specie do to disorient and capture their prey. So I have learned yet another ecosystem lesson about fishing and what to look for while doing so. I can't say I'd like to see this lesson continue in the direction it's seems to have taken, but for now will have two thoughts on the subject whenever I see Commorant's on the water.
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Member
Posts: 540
Location: Milw, WI | Dan,
I found it informative and so have some of the MWC'ers coming that way that I just talked to.
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Well, that may be a good reason for having them dirty smelly black devil birds around, but not enough reason to encourage their future growth!
(Jack Dunn Mill Lacs Fishing Trip 020.jpg)
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 Jack Dunn Mill Lacs Fishing Trip 020.jpg (154KB - 168 downloads)
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Member
Posts: 188
Location: Westland, Mich. | i've put myself on fish more than once by following the birds, but i still would dispatch a commorant in a heartbeat if the law allowed. |
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Location: Rhinelander | I've done much the same with Gulls on large lakes in Canada targeting Pike.  |
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Member
Posts: 2680
Location: Essexville, MI./Saginaw Bay. | Rick Larson - 7/26/2004 11:54 AM
Well, that may be a good reason for having them dirty smelly black devil birds around, but not enough reason to encourage their future growth!
Rick.
Believe me. The only way I'd encourage their future growth is by planting as many as I could in the soil and to see if they took root. But if I have to live with and leagally (at least for now) not harm these parasites, they might as well do me a service of sorts while their here.  |
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Gotchya! LOL |
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Member
Posts: 19
Location: Maumee Ohio | When u are goose hunting these nasty foolers from a distance look like a goose when flying----If u ever get by West Sister island on Erie there are thousands of these birds and it is quite intimidating when u are out there by yourself alone -----Its like Alfred Hichcock's The Birds----There fiesies has destroyed alot of the vegitation on the Island.-----Very nasty creatures---------------Mike |
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