Author: Jim Mize

The pool was long by mountain standards. With water levels low, the water barely moved. I had been fishing for a few minutes before I noticed a heron across the stream from me. It was fishing, too. Hardly moving, the bird stared into the water, its neck cocked. Suddenly, it uncoiled like a snake and struck, emerging from the stream with a foot-long rainbow. Holding the fish momentarily, the heron then flipped it into the air and caught the trout in its beak head first, swallowing it in two gulps. I suspected the heron was catching more fish than I…