An encounter with a very persistent hitchhiker

If you have spent as many hours in the outdoors as I have you will see some amazing sites. Many of them are from birds and animals. It makes me wish that I had been behind a really good camera on many of these adventures in order to capture them forever but then if I had been on camera, I would have missed seeing the big picture and living the events. I will never get to sell all of these amazing wildlife events to National Geographic but they will live in my mind forever.

Just the other day, I was fishing with three of my regular guests just south of the Causeway bridge. There was a huge flock of pelicans and terns feeding on small pogey that were being pushed to the surface by binge feeding ladyfish. We were off to the side of all of the activity catching a few speckled trout from a hidden reef. After fishing for an hour or so we all noticed a large brown pelican sweeping in from the north right toward us. His great wings were almost touching the surface of the green water. No doubt he was using the air pressure from his wings to create lift as he glided along. This is not unusual. Many times, pelicans will follow crab boats and feed on the bait scraps that the crabbers dump out of their pots. They have no fear of harm from the crab boats and the temptation of a free meal is too great. They will swoop in and splash down in the water scooping up the bait in the stretchy pouch in their lower beak. As the crab boats move along, they will gather as many as twenty or so pelicans and other sea birds. This entourage of feathered moochers will follow the crabber for hours. Pelicans will follow fishing boats as well. I suppose they really can’t tell the difference between a crab boat and a fishing boat except the crab boats move along a lot slower. Many times, I have had individual pelicans swoop in and land in the water near my boat but this particular pelican was about to do something totally unexpected. Just as he neared the side of the boat, he flapped his great wings one time and made a perfect landing right on the back deck. I was standing beside the leaning post on the port side of the boat and Earl Hines was on the starboard side. Neither of us were over three feet from the pelican. The big bird folded his wings and gave a shake to smooth his feathers and took over the back deck.

My mom was a farm girl and she taught me how to calmly talk to animals to keep them from getting scared. I began to talk to the pelican. He seemed calm and not the least bit afraid of us. Finally, I decided that I could reach out and touch the big bird. After all, he seemed friendly enough. Just as my hand touched the top of his head, he snapped at me with his big leathery beak. I was fast enough to miss that bite but when I reached out to rub his back, he got me. Surprisingly it didn’t hurt that much. The bite force from a pelican is not nearly as painful as a seagull or tern nor is the beak as sharp. Those guys can draw blood. I know from the many times I have had to untangle fishing line out of their wings. The pelican tried to eat a soft plastic lure that was laying on the deck. We grabbed that quickly so he wouldn’t eat it and threw it in the trash bucket. He then went after a half empty coke bottle and then pecked on a soft sided tackle bag. We decided to leave him be. Maybe he just needed a rest. We finished fishing that spot and cranked the outboard to move to the next spot. I thought the sound of the outboard engine would scare him away but it didn’t bother the bird in the least. I steered the boat into the wind to help give him lift for his take-off. When the wind hit him, he just sat down on the deck. I thought, “ok, if you want to ride then ride”. I set a course for our next spot and put the boat on plane. At thirty miles per hour the pelican was perfectly comfortable. In fact, he hopped of the back deck and down on the floor of the boat and began to waddle up toward the front of the boat. Earl and I were standing together behind the helm and Bob Birdwell and Leon Hicks were sitting on the Ice cooler in front of the center console. Leon was on the port side and he had his foot resting on the port side rod locker. The pelican walked right under his knee and turned and stuck his beak right up in Leon’s face. The wind noise kept me from being able to hear exactly what Leon said in reaction to this sneak attack but both he and Bob almost left the boat at thirty miles per hour. At our next location, which was about two miles distant, we began to catch a few speckled trout. At this point, the pelican began to be a pest as he tried to eat our catch before we could put them in the cooler. I had too much to do with trying to stay on a moving school of specks with the trolling motor and help my guests with their fish so the pelican needed to go. I quickly reached out and caught him by the beak and when I did, he spread his wings. I then grabbed one of his wings and heaved him overboard. This didn’t seem to bother our hitchhiker one bit. He just kept swimming along beside the boat. Seeing another school of trout breaking the surface about two hundred yards away I cranked the outboard and roared away. When we stopped and deployed the trolling motor, to my surprise, the pelican landed on the back deck again. This time, he was even more aggressive at trying to take the fish away from us so, I threw him out again. This time, I guess he got the hint and stayed in the water. You just can’t make this stuff up!

Like I said before, You just never know what you are going to see in the great outdoors. This incident was definitely a first. If you are out fishing at Sabine Lake and a big brown pelican lands on your boat, don’t be surprised. I would wager that this bird has done this before and will do it again.