Private Pond

[bogtrotter]

I fished a private pond for an hour this afternoon.

What a gorgeous day . . . the definition of Indian summer.

I didn't do too much in the way of catching - - just one 10" brookie that I landed near the start and three 8" ones that I reeled in toward the end.

But I did have one interesting experience. After I was there about half an hour, a great blue heron (let's call him "Fred") landed on the opposite bank and just sat and watched me.

Then, when I started to move around a little, Fred took off in a slow motion fashion that I can only compare to an old man rising out of a barca-lounger and flew up to the branch (about 20 feet off the ground) of a pine tree next to the pond, where he proceeded to perch and stare at me for about 10 minutes.

Eventually, I made my way along the shore until I was almost directly under the tree that Fred was perched in.
At first, my proximity didn't seem to bother him, but after a I made a particularly noisy cast a minute or so later, he flew off to a slightly higher branch in a different tree further down the shore, where he continued to watch me until I left about 10 minutes later.

[Baitbucket]

He was most likely waiting to see if any of your catches came floating up to the surface. I see this all the time at Quabbin with the eagles. They will hop down the shore line tree to tree following the boat. As soon as you hook , the circle around about 20ft above the boat till you release the fish. If the fish is to slow getting down, its done for.

[bogtrotter]

The odd thing is that, although I see a fair number of heron on the streams that I fish, I cannot recall one sticking around when I show up.

Instead, they almost always fly further up or downstream.

This pond is the only place that I can recall ever having seen one perch in a tree.

[taxid]

As someone that raises fish in ponds I can tell you they are an extremely intelligent and adaptive bird. I do everything possible non-lethally to keep them out of my ponds, which includes scaring the away with bottle rockets, staked lines around the ponds, and used to have a dog I could sic on them to show they weren't welcome. The thing that irks me about them is they will spear fish far to large for them to swallow and leave them on the bank, as I guess they instinctively poke at anything that moves. They are also a parasite vector in conjunction with snails (the grubs you see in fish flesh).

I had one ol' boy that just keep coming back and figured out how to get through the staked lines. He would just fly off a 100 yards or so and stand on the ground or in a tree and come right back about a half hour later. Sadly I had to purchase a permit from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, (needed a state permit too) and took him out. I even fired a shotgun toward him and he would come right back! I don't like to kill anything, but he was costing me some serious money.

What amazed me was when I picked him up there was nothing to him. Couldn't have been more than a pound of feathers and flesh and mostly legs and neck.

One thing I have going against me is there is high school not far from my property that lights up for security reasons and football games. Although I am almost a half a mile away it lights up my back ponds almost as bright as daylight (I can't imagine what their electric bill is). I run herons off in the middle of the night due to that.

[swamp hawgs]

i saw one way way high on the top of a tree this past spring squawking for a while. thought it was odd. it was early afternoon to

such a cool bird

[taxid]

They will squawk at you as they consider you competition. They are usually but not always territorial. You typically don't see more than at a time at a pond or very close together.

[lowaccord66]

I had one night before last fly from the tailrace I was in to the top of the dam and watched me as I was flyfishing.  It stayed for quite some time before giving up and flying away.