Fishing for Orioles

Photo copyright 2012 by Jackson Landers

It isn't often that one goes fishing and catches a baby oriole. Somehow, I managed it.

This afternoon I drove over to a local reservoir to see about catching some catfish. Once my cat rigs were set up in the water I set up a light bass rig to pass the time with. I was a little bit sloppy with the back-hand part of my cast and my lure smacked into a low-hanging branch behind me.

Something dropped out of the tree and a couple of birds began mercilessly haranguing me. It took me a good ten or fifteen seconds to realize that I had bumped into a birds nest and the young had fallen out.

As it turned out, there was only the one baby oriole. Not quite old enough to make it out of the nest. I quickly caught him from the bush that he'd fallen into, hanging right over the water (apologies to any disappointed largemouth bass). I snapped one quick photo of him and then stood on an overturned bucket to put him back in the nest.

He was in perfect health and had not been injured by the lure at all. The bush below him had broken the fall. I stepped back about twenty yards and waited for a while to let the little family calm down and reunite.

Copyright 2012 by Jackson Landers

The spot beneath the oriole's nest turned out to be good luck. As I hauled in my lines to go home I felt a strong weight on one line. It felt like I'd snagged on a submerged tree. I worked on it for a few minutes, hoping that the bit of movement I felt meant that I was hauling in a dead branch from the bottom of the reservoir and perhaps I would be able to keep my terminal tackle. I said to myself repeatedly, "there's no way that's a fish."

Lo, at the end of the line there was a 25 inch blue catfish!

I caught it on disgusting old rotting chicken breast that I let sit in a baggie in the fridge for about a month until it was just right.

This was one of those times where I almost didn't bother to go out fishing. It seemed like too much trouble to even bother with dragging my gear out, especially since I would be fishing alone. Boy, am I glad that I bothered.