John and I live in a cottage style house on 6 acres including a 2 acre pond. Skagit County calls it a lake, although it is unnamed. A lake, you see, has more than one property owner around it's shores. On the west side of this lake is Scimitar Ridge Ranch, and a little south a guy named Cliff has maybe fifty feet. The insurance man says that's a good thing, because if it was a "pond" it would need a fence around it to be insurable.The lake/pond is a depression left behind after a developer quarried for materials to build the road up to Scimitar Ranch. It had been pretty wet land before that, fed by a seasonal stream. The developer built a simple dam after quarrying, and the mosquito populated wet land became a small lake with depths of 7 to 18 feet. There is an island in the center because the rock making it up was hard, unyielding stuff and left standing. It's probably the size of two good building lots.
We have a wooden dock at the lake's edge. We can sit there summer evenings and watch the sun set behind Scimitar Ridge. That's the best time of day because the breeze is just right, it's not too hot, and we can usually find company who can spend that hour with us.
Cliff (you remember the guy with the 50 feet) came to us our third winter and suggested we go in with him on some trout fingerlings. He said the owner before us had done that about every other year and it was a good thing. Cliff told us all about the care and feeding of trout and how pretty they are.
OK. The Trout Lady came in April with her truck and her husband-driver. It's a flatbed with big plastic tanks piled aboard. We agreed to buy 500, just past the fingerling stage, and I wrote a check. They were loaded with a big nylon net into buckets, easy to count, and then husband-driver flung them into the water.
"There they are," said Trout Lady, "They are happy here." You could see little boil marks near the surface, close to the shore at first, then further and further out.
"You won't have to feed them for several weeks, if ever. You have a healthy pond here and the population of trout is in good proportion to their environment. But if you want to feed them, they'll come right to you when they get comfortable. They can feel your footsteps when you approach them, and they'll be waiting for you."
Cliff said he'd bought two 50 pound bags of Purina Trout Chow (yes, there is such a thing). "When that's gone, save yourself some money and buy cheap dog kibbles," said husband-driver. He showed us photos of trophy-sized rainbows taken from lakes they'd stocked. The specimens looked like salmon, and I was informed that rainbow trout and steelhead are the same fish. For some reason nobody really understands, some rainbows take to the sea from the stream and are quite similar to salmon. Genetically identical are rainbow trout and steelhead trout.
I let a month go by, then started throwing trout chow... just a few handsful. No reaction from the mysterious deep until the end of the second week. If I went back to the house and watched through the scope in the kitchen nook, I could see the dots of food disappear one at a time, like they were being sucked downward.
By the end of the second week of feeding, the fish were confident enough to seize the chow as I threw it. At two months, they would be waiting for me, making rings at the water's surface. At three months, they would leap out of the water at the first toss and the water boiled with their excitement. By September, their gymnastics would raise enough water to occlude my glasses.
Midway through this progression, osprey took notice of the lake's new occupants. A pair was nesting about half-way up Scimitar Ridge and a little bit around the corner. At first, both ospreys hunted my fish... each taking one or two per day. Soon, mom stayed home with the chicks.
It's something to see. An osprey is more falcon than eagle in size and weight. It's eyes look forward rather than out to each side, so it looks a little cross-eyed compared to an eagle. It's talons are two toes facing front, two toes facing backward, while an eagle has three toes out, one toe back. The scales on the ospreys' feet grow upward instead of downward, making them work the same way barbs function on a fishing hook. Highly specialized, ospreys eat only fish.
Typically, the bird would rest on a fir tree branch and observe the
lake surface for a half hour or so, not making so much as a hiccup. Suddenly, he would plunge at at a 45 degree angle and disappear below the surface of the water for just a moment. Breaking the surface, wings flapping wildly, he'd gain a foot or two feet above the water in wet flight. That's not easy, especially with a load. You could see him adjust the six inch fish so it faced forward (less wind drag), and then take big, long loops to gain altitude before he could climb high enough to navigate home."I'm nurturing these fish so an osprey can show up without invitation and help himself twice a day," I'd complain to whoever might be listening.Thank heaven they'll leave for South America when the kids are grown and the season changes.
Even with the culling, I was seeing these fish grow to 10" and beyond. As the weather grew colder and as ice began to form, I cut back their feed, knowing that everything slows down for my scaly little charges, including their metabolism. You can choke them to death by overfeeding.
The thaw came, and with the thaw came cormorants.
From Wikipedia: "The cormorant as a symbol of deception and greed is described in Milton's Paradise Lost, sitting on the Tree of Life, as an image of Satan entering Paradise in disguise before tempting Eve."
About that time, came a boy about 14 years old from the RV park next door. He'd been admiring the pond, and the paddleboats, and had heard of the trout we'd stocked there. He asked very politely if he could fish. "I'll only catch and release," he said.
Jake has been catching and releasing for about three weeks under my watchful eye. Always the little gentleman, he rings the doorbell when he arrives with his fishing pole and tackle, and always rings the doorbell before he leaves to let me know he's all done and going home.
"Those black bi
rds are eating your fish," he told me. "They dive kinda sideways head first and they usually come up nothing, but once in awhile they've got one and they choke it all the way down their necks."Quite a gullet is built into a cormorant. These are not small fish.
So, this afternoon, I asked Jake if he'd ever eaten one of the trout. No, he said, he hadn't had permission.
I looked into the sincere blue eyes and said, "Well, today's the day. Catch and keep two big ones and take em home. Let me know if they are tasty."
Jake went out in the paddle boat. I could see him out there from the kitchen window as I put dinner together but wasn't watching very close. About an hour later, Jake tapped on the kitchen slider.
He had two. One was about 13 inches long and the other 16.
Wow.
"Can you clean em?" I asked. Jake assured me he could. "Well, just bring us back a little piece. Your family can have the rest."
He came back with a tail section, I think it was of the bigger fish. He said it was very good fish, they'd done a quick pan sear and poach in a marinade.
I took the section into my kitchen and did a simple salt-pepper-butter pan fry. I held it out for John and Ross to try (I don't like most fish). They took a bite, said "Hmmm," and moved on to the dinner course. "It's a little muddy tasting," said John, "Maybe."
John and Ross are not under the same spell that Jake and the cormorants are under.
Between Jake and the cormorants, though, I'll be cheering for Jake.
