Fish are jumpin'

The creek was full of jumpin' fish yesterday midday at high tide. Some of these fish really leap way up out of the water. What accounts for the late-summer Great Fish Fly? The Snappers (baby Bluefish) are in and the usual explanation is that the jumping fish are trying to escape the Snappers' voracious appetite. Except that the jumping fish themselves look like Snappers. Are the Snappers cannabilistic? There's no doubt that they are well named; they will snap at anything -- a bit of whitebait, a bare hook, a lure, a finger.

An expedition to the nearby Town Dock on the rising tide by daughters Eva and Stephanie and granddaughter Juliette produced a catch of no less than 16 good-sized fish -- many of them caught with absurdly inadequate equipment. You don't need fancy fishing gear to land the Blue Snappers at this time of the year.

We had stuffed clams last nght; broiled Snappers tonight.

Yellow-crowned Night Heron reappeared this morning after an absence of a week or two. Yellow-billed Night-Herons were regular low-tide visitors to the pond in the spring and summer, often accompanied by an immature or two, but they has not been around for the past week or two. This morning's visitor was accompanied by two Green Herons with calling Royal Terns and the dependable rattling Kingfisher on the creek.

Eric Salzman