What Inshore Anglers Can Learn From Birds

A lone tern circled behind the boat as Capt. Geoff Page and his longtime pal Capt. Ron Hueston scanned for the approaching flats and potholes. I was watching aft and noticed the little white bird with the smooth, dark head making repeated passes over an area of Sarasota Bay near a deeper dropoff. 

Most of the many terns we’d seen that morning flew from pothole to pothole, head tilted downward in search of pilchards. Occasionally, a tern would dive into the water and flutter up with a beak full of breakfast.

Page, a fishing guide from Sarasota, called those good signs of the same food sources our targeted redfish and trout sought. But when I noticed the bird behind our boat clearly focused on something below, I advised Page, who spun around just in time to see a herd of reds plow through a pod of pilchards.

Unfortunately, a porpoise crashed the party and scatted the redfish before we could get into casting position. Nevertheless, that moment exemplified a truth that’ll help dial in your flats searches: Trust the birds. They know the game better than we do.

It's well-known that seabirds play a major role for offshore anglers who’ll watch for these feathered fishfinders. Many bluewater captains use radar and high-end binoculars to look for birds. The inshore shallows present similar opportunities for anglers who pay attention to nearby birds and learn to interpret what their presence and actions indicate.

Here’s a rundown of the common players on Florida's inshore shallows:

Ospreys 

These sharp-toed raptors are notorious for high-speed, feet-first dives that often end with an unsuspecting fish securely gripped in those lethal talons. Take note of what nearby ospreys snag. Is it forage species like mullet, mojarra, or pigfish? Or is it a trout, ladyfish or juvenile snook? Every catch offers clues to a flat's population and positioning.

Pelicans 

Florida is home to abundant numbers of resident brown pelicans as well as seasonal populations of white pelicans that winter here. The familiar brown pelican spots its targets from above and dives, with its beak open, from a lower altitude than ospreys.

Decades ago, the late Gulf Coast sportfishing legend Capt. Gene Turner taught me to watch a pelican’s post-dive moves. If the bird lifts its head, but holds its beak downward, it’s straining out the water around a bunch of small baitfish like glass minnows or pilchards. If a brown pelican rises from its dive and quickly tosses its head back, it has caught a mullet, ladyfish or another larger species.

And those white pelicans? Beautiful in flight with their snowy plumage contrasting black underwing feathers, these guys feed by swimming and dipping their beaks in the water to scoop or grab mullet, pilchards, and shrimp.

White pelicans often practice cooperative feeding where they’ll form lines or circles to corral baitfish into tighter balls, or shallower waters were they’re more easily captured. Even between feeds, groups of both pelican species indicate productive feeding areas. Good for birds, good for gamefish.

Along with indicating bait-laden areas that will likely attract inshore predators, pelicans will also inadvertently show you areas of fish concentrations. Brown and white pelicans often fly a foot or two off the water’s surface and when they pass mullet schools or redfish, their sudden appearance often spooks shallow water fish, reveal their position to an attentive angler.

Cormorants

These subsurface hunters have little fear of boats, so you’ll often spot them feeding close enough to those brilliant green eyes. I’ve seen these birds pop to the surface with everything from baby catfish to lizardfish, but most often, you’ll see them with pinfish, pilchards, threadfin herring or finger mullet.

A similar diving bird, the anhinga differs from the cormorant primarily by its pointed beak, contrasting the hooked tip of a cormorant’s fish catcher. Using their beak like a spear to impale their prey, anhingas earn their “snake bird” nickname from a longer, thinner neck that resembles a serpent  extending from the water’s surface.

Hooded mergansers, winter migrators, follow a similar game plan, with their slender, serrated bills ideally formed for catching small fish. Each of these species will show you where the baitfish are thick and you can bet that fact is not lost of the gamefish you seek.

Wading Birds

Herons, great egrets, white ibis, and night herons do their best work at low tide, when receding waters bring the bars, flats and mangrove skirts within easier beak reach. Some like the pinfish, blennies and other small finfish; others dine on crustaceans and worms. All will clearly identify the healthy areas with a bounty of forage. 

When the water returns, you can bet those areas crowded with the long legged birds will find redfish, sheepshead, black drum, trout and others capitalizing on various stages of the food web.

Beach Birds

Willets, piping plovers, sanderlings—all of those birds you see racing out to stick their beaks in the sand after each receding wave are looking for a variety of food sources that indicate fertile areas that extend all into the surf. Take their presence as a sign of promising waters likely to attract pompano, whiting, croakers, redfish, and black drum.

Black Skimmers

One of Florida’s more unique seabirds, skimmers fly mere inches from the water’s surface and drag their elongated lower beak across the surface to scoop up baitfish. The skimmer’s feeding method relies on baitfish concentrations, so take note of where they’re flying sorties.

Seagulls

Often joining terns to cluster over open water baitfish schools, especially when mackerel, bluefish, or false albacore (“little tunny”) ravage pilchards or threadfins, the gull’s excited shrieking may grab your attention even before you spot the melee. Hovering right off the deck, these kinda predators/mostly scavengers eagerly wait for feeding fish to leave wounded baitfish and/or table scraps for easy pickings.

On beaches, a quick gull might pluck a sand flea tumbling in a receding wave, so take note of what these birds are eating. Similarly, winter’s extreme “negative” low tides can lay bare entire grassflats, and when strong north winds associated with cold fronts enter the equation, the water can rip out so quickly, some of the forage is literally left high and dry.

During just such a day in South Tampa Bay, I waded a shallow area that rose to a broad flat carpeted with seagrass. When I spotted a half dozen seagulls actively foraging through the grass, I peaked closer with my long lens and saw they were picking off live shrimp left within the still wet blades.

Whether it’s baitfish, crustaceans, invertebrates, or scraps that indicate popular feeding areas, don’t overlook the bankable clues that seabirds offer. Instinct equals intuition and that defines a key point I’ve found consistent with all the critters with which we share the water: We do it for fun; they do it for a living.

Trust the birds.

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