Nature Still Rules as Entertainment

I saw another amazing thing the other day. I was on a fishing trip with some friends, and we were maneuvering around the Avalon harbor when we spotted some ‘fish sign’, i.e. there were seagulls circling around the water at a particular site, which means there is bait near the surface, and hence larger fish hanging around wishing to feed on the bait. We could see some churning on the surface fifty yards ahead of us so we moved in, ready to cast our lines.

“There’s a bait ball!” yelled the skipper.

A bait ball? What I saw was this: a pulsing, writhing mass of sardines; a globular cluster about four feet in diameter, bobbing up and down just below the ocean surface. They cram themselves into a globe as a protective measure, I later learned; the strays on the outside get eaten – inside the globe you survive.

So the plan we enact is to back up into the ball, scoop up bait with our net with abandon and throw ‘em into the bait tank, and then drive on.

The plan proceeds flawlessly. Humans still reign over the fish kingdom.

And we caught a bunch of fish and ate them. And so it goes…