The hazards of fishing gear for the birds of Clear Lake
- Floyd E. Hayes, Bryan McIntosh and Marilyn Waits
- Posted On
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – It’s a picture perfect morning on Clear Lake. A thin veil of mist rises above the placid lake as a cackling flock of geese flaps overhead.
The carp are spawning, splashing as they writhe at the surface. A courting pair of grebes noisily patters across the water.
You deftly cast your fishing line from your boat out toward the tules and slowly reel it in. Suddenly you feel a strong tug as your rod bends sharply toward the water.
With heart racing and adrenaline pumping, you struggle to reel in your catch, which feels bigger than usual. But instead of a fish, a big black-and-white bird emerges a few feet from your boat and desperately flaps on the surface as it struggles to swim away from you.
Oh no, it’s a grebe! What do you do?
It’s fun being outdoors and fishing on Clear Lake is your favorite hobby, but the last thing you want to catch is a bird.
Nevertheless, fishing is like driving a car: If you drive often enough you will inevitably hit a squirrel or some other animal, and if you go fishing regularly you will eventually hook a fish-eating bird.
Clear Lake is a fabulous place for fishing. Loaded with nutrients, the lake naturally provides an abundance of food for fish, and the fish provide food for fish-eating birds.
Wherever there are fish, there are fish-eating birds. As a consequence, fishermen occasionally snag a fish-eating bird on Clear Lake. And other birds occasionally become entangled in carelessly discarded fishing line.
Recently we have begun compiling a list of incidents of birds hooked or entangled in fishing gear on Clear Lake, based on our own personal experiences and those related to us by birders and fishermen.
So far we have tallied 35 birds of 11 species snagged by fishing gear at Clear Lake. All but two were fish-eating birds.
The Western Grebe and Clark’s Grebes are the most vulnerable birds, accounting for nearly half of the records.
The double-crested cormorant and American white pelican are also frequently snagged by fishing gear. Nearly two-thirds of the birds were found alive; some defied attempts at rescue whereas others were captured, unentangled and released. It was too late for more than a third of the birds that were already dead when discovered.
We would like to expand our list of incidents for a research project that we are working on. If you happen to have witnessed a bird hooked or entangled in fishing gear at Clear Lake and have not spoken with us about it, please send us information on (1) the identity (or a description) of the bird, (2) whether the bird was on land or water, (3) what part of the bird was hooked or entangled, and (4) the date and location (which are less important than the other details, but useful to avoid duplicate reports of the same incident). You may contact Floyd Hayes at 707-337-0053 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Getting back to your unwanted bycatch, what are you going to do? The unfortunate bird is struggling, it’s convinced you’re going to eat it and it has a perilously sharp beak.
Your first impulse is to cut the line and release the hapless bird so you can get back to fishing. But please, please, please resist the urge!
Cutting the line is almost certainly a death sentence – a slow and painful death – for the beguiled bird. The hook may lodge in its beak, neck or stomach, preventing the bird from eating, and the line may get tangled in vegetation, ensnaring the bird.
Instead of cutting the line, here are a few tips for safely rescuing the bird provided by long-time Clear Lake resident Gary Hill and other fishermen who I have spoken to.
First, reel the bird in slowly and evenly, without jerking on the line. Reel the bird in all the way to the tip of the fishing pole, but leave the bird in the water because a bird pulled out of the water is more likely to injure itself or you, or both. If a companion is with you, ask for assistance.
Hold the bird under water (but not for more than a minute to prevent drowning) and reach down with your free hand to grab its neck just behind the head or, if it’s a pelican, grab its beak.
Once you have grabbed the bird by its neck or beak, gently fold the wings and hold them firmly against the body so it cannot flap, and pull the bird out of the water. You may need to grab the legs as well.
Be very careful to keep its beak away from your eyes; if you have glasses or sunglasses, wear them for protection. Gently covering the head of the bird with a towel, hat or shirt can help calm it down and make it easier to extract the hook.
If the barb is not imbedded in its flesh, simply cut the hook with side-cutting pliers so the barb falls out and back out the barbless end of the hook. If the barb is embedded within the flesh, push it through until it emerges and then cut it off with side-cutting pliers. If you lack side-cutting pliers, try to remove the hook as gently as possible without tearing too much flesh.
If the bird is entangled in fishing line, gently untangle it. If necessary, the line can be cut with a knife or scissors. Be sure to save the line for discarding it later in a fishing line recycling tube at any of the public boat ramps. Avoid discarding the fishing line in the lake or along the shore, which may result in another bird or other animal getting entangled and perhaps dying.
Once unhooked or untangled, the bird can be released if it appears feisty and otherwise healthy. Release it by gently placing it in the water or on the ground and allow it to depart on its own accord. It may take a minute or more for the bird to assess the situation before taking off.
If the bird appears injured, consider taking it to the Wasson Memorial Veterinary Clinic at 3083 Highway 175 in Lakeport.
To prevent bird bycatch, avoid casting your line where birds are swimming or flying nearby. And to prevent entanglement, remove any discarded fishing line that you find and dispose of it properly.
There are 23 fishing line recycle bins at all the shoreline public parks and a number of resorts. All were constructed and installed by volunteers with the local Redbud Audubon chapter.
A list of the recycle bins locations can be found on www.redbudaudubon.org.
Redbud Audubon has shipped more than 33 pounds of the collected fishing line to a recycling manufacturer in the Midwest to make new products.
About the authors: Floyd E. Hayes has a PhD in biology and is a professor at Pacific Union College in Angwin. He specializes in studying the ecology, behavior and biogeography of Neotropical birds but also works for Redbud Audubon Society on our Western and Clarke’s Grebe monitoring project on Clear Lake. Marilyn Waits is a longtime member of the board of directors for the Redbud Audubon Society. She served as president of Redbud Audubon for 6 years and continues to serve on the board. She is the head of Redbud Audubon’s Grebe Project which is going into its 6th year of studying the Western and Clarkes Grebes on Clear Lake.