Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
”Flying rats” is a derogatory term occasionally used by folks to describe gulls and other seabirds. Personally, I’m not so keen on the description. In fact, I’m not afraid to admit that I really like the gulls and other birds that keep us company, and sometimes entertained whenever we’re on or near the water. The terns, the black-backs, herring gulls, laughing gulls, cormorants, shearwaters, skimmers, petrels and pelicans are just a few of the many birds that are a part of the landscape and seem to enjoy life along the coast as much the rest of us do. And surely every fisherman will have to agree that many of their great catches are the result of first being tipped off to the presence of fish by the activities of birds overhead.
In the big scheme of things, gulls and other seabirds are certainly good to have around and clearly an asset to anglers. But as much as some of us appreciate the birds, when we see a bunch of gulls picking away at the spoils of an overturned trashcan or slurping down the guts of a rotten fish carcass, it’s not hard to understand how someone might make the comparison between feathered-friend and rancid-rodent. So as much as I like them, I’ll also admit that there are times when birds can be a royal pain in the butt and I really wish that they would just go away! And the one bird at the top of my list is the shearwater.
Shearwaters or “sailor gulls” are an open ocean bird that is seldom seen close to shore. In fact, they spend their entire lives at sea, going to shore only to nest. Shearwaters are birds that soar very close to the water and then land on the water and swim down to catch their meal. The presence of shearwaters can be good for fishermen because it might indicate the presence of baitfish and feeding predators. But they can also spell trouble for stationary anglers using bait because these birds have the ability, and often the inclination, to swim 30-feet down, grab a bait and then either eat it underwater or bring it up to the surface and rip it to pieces.
Shearwaters are seldom shy of a boat and will often swim right up to it to eat chum as its flowing out of the bucket or grab a bait as soon as it hits the water. When anglers are being hassled by just one or two shearwaters the solution can be as simple as feeding them a few pieces of fish until they’re full and then they’ll typically wander off. And while I’m not keen on extortion by paying-off a bunch of feathered gangsters, I’m glad that at least it doesn’t take much to fill their stomachs and get rid of them.
Those who wish to take more aggressive action can just scoop the thief up in a landing net and put it on the cockpit deck. Shearwaters cannot fly up and out of a boat, so putting them on deck is like a “time-out” that gives the birds a chance to ponder the consequences of their actions and hopefully when they’re turned loose they will opt not to hassle another boat for a while. Shearwaters on deck will typically seem almost tame as they walk around and investigate the boat and happily accept small offerings of fish from the crew. Anglers should be warned, however, that not all shearwaters will be reformed by their imprisonment and will immediately go back to stealing bait upon release. My recommendation for such hardened criminals is just to pay them off in fish and be done with them.
Sometimes shearwaters pounce on a boat in such overwhelming numbers that they cannot be fought and the only thing an angler can do is try to hide their baits in the depths. When 15 to 25, or more, of these birds surround a boat, the anglers only defense is to get their bait down at least 30 feet or more and hope that whatever fish they are trying to catch will respond at that depth.
Big gulls like herrings and black-backs don’t create as much of a problem for offshore anglers as they do for those fishing close to shore or in the back bays. While these gulls will usually leave anglers alone, if they do get hung up in a bait or line, they can be a real headache to get rid of. The good thing about these gulls is that, unlike the shearwaters, they cannot dive down to reach a bait that is more than about 18-inches underwater. On the down side, these gulls are big enough that they can quickly and easily choke down just about any size bait someone might fish with and their sheer size makes them more than a handful to wrestle with on the boat during the unhooking process. The best thing anglers can do when they’re being hassled by big birds is to keep their baits out of sight of the winged-wonders until they get bored waiting for a their meal and finally just leave.
Those who do get hooked-up to a flying scavenger will find that the unhooking and untangling process is usually a two or three-man project. Birds will both bite and scratch, so anglers must be prepared to deal with both ends of them. Wearing gloves helps a lot and it’s usually necessary for someone to hold the body of the bird with its wings closed, but the holder must beware because given a chance, the bird will probably bite the hands that are holding it. Putting a rag over its head will discourage biting, but since the bird will eventually shake the rag off and start up again I prefer to immobilize the head by holding the beak and let a third person do the untangling.
It’s ironic that we fishermen spend so much time trying to find birds so that we can use them as an indicator of the fish we’re trying to catch, and then, when we do find our feathered friends, some just can’t wait for the “flying rats” to go away and let us fish in piece.
Captain Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
