Herons will nail fish too large to eat!

This fish is one of three large brook trout that were skewered by a heron that was making night visits to my trout pond a couple of months ago. (The highschool next door lights up the sky like a Christmas tree every night and it's even brighter during football games)

This fish was caught on hook and line today, and had obviously healed somewhat and survived. The other two that were found the next morning a few months ago did not.

Not clear in the picture is a healed gash down the side. Apparently that beak is one sharp instrument!

No sale on this fish!

Ouch!

Yeah, I've seen that particular wound before.

Herons suck.

On second thought maybe this was evolving into a brook trout/porpoise! Salvelinus truncatus!

And I caught and killed it!

Side wound look anything like this?

Yep!

[quote=Theo Gallus]Side wound look anything like this?
[/quote
Is this a threadfin shad ? By any chance .

That is a Golden Shiner.

No it's the victim of a heinous crime.

It's a floor wax AND a dessert topping.

Quoting a 70's era SNL commercial parody. Now THAT is an obscure reference. Keep them coming.

Cecil Wrote:

Looks like a "heroneinous" crime to me.

Well this man is good with the wit!

And these birds are smart enough to purposely stock a pond? I don't think so. Or are they so smart that they are removeing their competition for the smaller fish?

They have good eyesight and can hear a rifles bolt closing at well over a hundred yards....or so I have heard.

The GBH at my pond can hear me crawl through high-tension fence wires at about 75 yards. But I'm not too graceful about it sometimes.

Could be! Maybe both the trout and the heron were after the fatheads cruising the edge of the pond and he decided they were competition?

Hell that's nothing. One that visits my ponds has a cloaking device and a deflector shield. And he's working on x-ray vision to see where I am in the house!

From what I understand it's very common in nature for animals to attack competitors for the same food.

Makes sense.


BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The herons around here can hear my legrest go down on my recliner ............... and my dog is sleeping right under the chair and can't hear it.

The herons around my place must be pretty tame. I saw one the beginning of the week standing at the edge of the pond so I fired a round to scare it off and it flew to a nearby ditch. The next day it was back again so I fired into the rip-rap close to it and this time it flew out of site. The following evening it (maybe there are several) was near the pond and looked to have a piece of plastic stuck around it's neck. I was thinking "serves it right" but I took out my .223 and looked through the scope to find that it had a large silver fish in it's mouth. I encouraged the GBH to drop the fish with a little noise and flying lead then went to see what I had lost. Laying on the bank was a 14" shad and a 12" bass. I guess it was doing me a favor in this case. I haven't seen it for a couple of days.

No GBH were harmed in the making of this story.

Do they make good forage ? And how often does the golden shiner spawn ? thanx i am thinking of useing them to feed my big LMB so they see other food besides BG and HBG .

Excellent bass forage, GSH spawn once a year. In an established pond, I beleive I would try Anderson's 250,000 GSH fry for $250 deal (next year).

What kind of structure is needed for them to spawn ? I have this pond that i fish and they want some of them out and dont want to kill them . How much fry will come from their spawn or each ones spawn . Thanx for your help

They spawn in vegetation next to the shore. Before they were eliminated from my pond, I would see bunches of them getting busy in shallow water where grass/weeds hung over the banks.

250,000 for $250??? That's a dollar a thousand?? How can they possibly raise fish that cheap?

The fish are just hatched so they are 1-2 millimeters in length.

So who counts them??


I am kidding, after I posted that last night I thought about it, if you are talking newly hatched fry, yep, they would be quite tiny and virtually have no overhead. After all, the activity that produces them is still free, especially in Arkansas.