The inch-an-hour storms have driven the anglers away from my Neighborhood’s Bethany Lake. It’s full of hungry trout but the anglers flee the storms, heading home with a full creel and soaking wet clothes.
And when the anglers flee, the resident creatures recapture the best fishing spots. In these pictures, Billy is fishing from the crest of a concrete check dam. Fish swim in circles immediately above the dam.
Usually there’s a family there on the picnic bench, and the smallest child can fish for pumpkinseed sunfish at that spot above the dam.
In this instance, Billy Heron does not even like me looking from twenty yards. The Red Winged Blackbirds have been harassing the heron, following them for over two miles. Maybe the Heron is edgy and hungry.
We saw it roiling in the shallow water, and then it came under the culvert and into the main body of Bethany Lake. They tried to catch it at the dam, but failed. I think the fish was ill and unable to resist the currents that carried it over the falls.
A fish this big may be invulnerable to herons or raccoons. Carp are invasive.
Billy landed deep into a thicket, it appeared. But this heron will only land where it has unimpeded wingspan to leave quickly. Actually it hid out on a small pond with open water in the thicket, not much larger than my own backyard ponds, where a different culvert guides a creek beneath the road, forming a small pond.
Nutria, geese, ducks, and the heron bicker over these small ponds, especially since the bigger lake is getting crowded with anglers.
I also spotted a golf course plover (killdeer) and a cedar waxwing in an unexpected long-distance photo; both first time sightings for me at this lake.
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/s/ Redwoodman
