Life at the Lake

HERON ON MY DOCK

Not so great a surprise

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Morning visitor to my dock, this great blue heron is in search of small perch and this year's large-mouth bass fry, which are congregated in the warm, shallow water. But he is very shy, and a moment after I snapped this picture from my doorway, he chose to fish at some less populated location; in other words, he flapped off a few docks. Often, though, he fishes from his stilt-like legs in the shallows, out from the cattails, standing as though his legs were cattail stalks, and his sharp beak will dart on his crane-like neck into the thin water and spear a bass that is only two or three inches long.

The bass are making great growth, feeding on zooplankton and insect life. The bass that are deemed one years old will weigh up to three-quarters of a pound and fight more than respectably. They will take a nymph fly—usually on its first presentation to them, if it "acts right." And this year's crop of bass will keep banging it, but usually fail to get hooked, in spite of their big mouths.

When you hooks a small bass, it is easy enough to grab the fish by its lower lip and unhook him. He becomes still, as though he knows you are trying to release him as carefully as you can.

Of course such a sentiment is a gross example of the "pathetic fallacy, as it is called in literary circles, when you attribute human qualities to inhuman objects or conditions. Knowing this much, this little, doesn't make the experience any less important or enjoyable.

At the lake we all must share—man, bird, fish, creature. It is not a choice we have to make. It is the environmental condition.

Share or do without.

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