My grandfather, a Wisconsin fisherman and tip-up inventor, used to say, "He's a strange bird" about anyone who's behavior was unusual or self-defeating. I can still hear his voice in my mind, on the water, and I see other fisherman not watching the birds. It's their great loss.
Using the birds to find fish isn't anything new. Thousands of words have been written about: "…following the birds" and, "…spotting the birds" and, "…fishing where the birds are".
What isn't often written about is how, given no other local information, you can bank on the birds to show you the best in fishing opportunities, day after day. Sure, you know if you see three hundred gulls circling and diving you probably ought to get over there and check it out. But if you see three hundred gulls a half mile east and three hundred terns a half mile west, which way do you go?
Well, if you're chasing stripers off the Atlantic coast of Cape Cod, you head for the terns. Why that choice?
It's not because there aren't forage fish and stripers under the gulls, there are. Under the terns, too. It's not because the terns are feeding on some different bait fish from the gulls and more likely to attract stripers than the other (his is possible, but its more likely to be the reverse). It's not to avoid a pack mentality of other fishermen either.
It's because the terns, when they feed, have less impact on the small bait fish and the stripers, therefore the stripers and their meal items are likely to remain on the surface longer. Hence, more time on the surface means more time for you to get there and make a few casts before the action disappears as they all go deep. On the other hand, those big wings and heavy bodies of the gulls, flapping and crashing into the water, can't help but put the bait down quickly and the fish with them. Go for the terns.
That's just one example of using a wider understanding of the birds.
Let me give you another one.
Fog. If you're a sight fisherman, fog takes away your ability to find fish by hiding the birds and the splashes of feeding fish,. On the other hand, fog also allows stripers, in particular, to continue feeding on the surface long after dawn and often until the sun breaks through.
So fog is a good thing for the fish but it gets in the way of the fisherman. Or does it?
The birds keep flying, hunting and feeding in the fog. You should too. How do you use them when you can't see them? You can guess where I'm going with this.
Simple, turn off the outboard and listen. Not only does fog provide cover for the fish, it also allows sound to travel over much greater distances than dry air. This means you can hear birds feeding from miles away in the fog rather than just a few hundred yards on a clear day. If you listen.
Your listening will also become more valuable as your ears become educated to what you're hearing. The sooner you learn the difference between a tern calling out, "Hey hubby, where are you?" and a tern that's saying, "Mmph (swallow). Wow! There sure are a lot of sand eels down here!" so much the better.
If you listen closely, the obvious difference is pitch and timing. Casual tern conversation is slower and more spaced out. Frenetic, 'come hither for a meal' calling, is faster and more staccato. It also involves more 'voices' in the same locale or coming from the same direction.
If you listen up, you can follow these calls to the fish. It's that simple.
By the way, if you see one bird flying by you in the fog, you may want to shut off the outboard and listen in the direction it's going. Cupping your hands around you ears and telling anyone else on the boat to be quiet is allowed too. After all, this is important. If you hear birds screaming, have at it.
Fog or no fog, if you see five birds flying by and going in the same direction, that should give you a hint about which way to explore, in case you are in need of a new fishing spot.
At any time you don't know where the fish are, you should stop to listen and watch for passing birds. In clear skies, I'm constantly scanning the horizon, including behind me, for bird action. Even when I'm going to a waypoint in the fog, where I expect the fish to be, I'll stop every half mile to listen. No sense motoring across five miles of ocean when the birds and fish may be feeding only a few yards away hidden from sight.
If you need to, you can follow a tern (is it obvious by now I prefer terns to gulls?) with your boat. Just throttle carefully and hang back so as not to disturb the bird. They only fly at about twenty knots but, of course, you should keep track of your position and keep an eye out for danger too in fog. After all, terns don't care if they fly over shoals, land or lobster boats but you might.
You should also watch for returning birds. By this I mean that sometimes you'll notice birds flying away from shore and at other times you'll notice birds flying back from "out there" somewhere. Pay particular attention to the returning birds to see what they're carrying in their mouths. If they have young, adult terns will carry sand eels and herring fry back from miles at sea. A bird with a meal in its mouth is sure evidence of a feeding frenzy out there somewhere and its back course will give you the right direction to try.
Here's a little more bird lore. On a clear day, birds, lots of them from a great distance, look like smoke rising from the water. This is a real telltale to watch for. It takes a few hundred birds to create this effect but when sighted it's always worth the run to check it out. The first time I spotted this effect through binoculars I motored five miles on speculation alone until I was finally under the birds and right into the middle of a quarter mile of ocean, boiling with stripers. And I was alone. That's one day I'm not likely to forget.
Now, say your motoring along and you come across a group of gulls resting on the water (terns rarely do), you can be sure they were feeding earlier. The likelihood is that stripers or blues were feeding there as well and there will be more action when the next school of baitfish comes through. But consider carefully, where you find these gulls isn't the place to watch for a repeat performance. Once the feeding stopped, the gulls landed and waited for their next opportunity. However, nobody taught them about the tide. So while they're resting, they're drifting away from where the action was. Since the bait swims up current and game fish swim up current and they both collide where underwater structure or current breaks are optimal, you should be motoring up current too. No sense going too far or too fast, but you should be going faster than the set of the tide at least.
A bit of caution. No doubt if you fish around the terns a lot, you'll catch one or two during the season. Not with the hook mind you but probably tangled in your line. When this happens, just reel 'em in and take a firm hold of the bird with its wings at its side. Unwrap the mono from around them carefully, you can't help but notice how soft a tern is in hand, and toss it up into the air to join its waiting family. The bird pecking at you won't cause any real damage as long as you keep it away from your eyes, and that's a serious risk with any bird.
If it's a gull, grab its head the very first chance you get or it will hurt you. Get its feet next and let your partner unwrap the line. When you release, let go of the head last, like you would a snake.
If it's a pelican you have to …oh, that's right.
Finally, when you are stopped somewhere to fish or motoring slowly along or just looking around and you spot a bird flying by, watch its head. If it turns and looks down at the water then you can be sure that something is there. Cast quickly to that spot for a good chance to hook up with the mystery fish. This is a case of nothing ventured, nothing gained. But one that has gained my charter clients hundreds of fish through the years.
Birds aren't just a pleasant addition to the view. They aren't merely an occasional help. They're an invaluable resource and could be nearly all of your "professional" technique for finding great fishing. It's a strange bird, that doesn't use them.

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