One wonders..

One wonders just what crosses critters' minds at times.  I suppose they are a lot like humans as I have the same thoughts about a lot of us as well.  But back to the critters..I pondered fish minds today.  Someone once told me that fish have tiny brains.  Well, I cannot be sure of that as I have never pried into what is in a fish head.  It just seemed to be adding insult to injury to do that after already mangling the poor thing while cleaning it.  Still, fish have to be smart enough to catch food so they cannot be all dumb.  Or can they?  If anyone can talk with fish, I sure have a few questions to ask!

I was on the pier this afternoon taking advantage of a cool breeze coming across the Bay.  About half way down our pier, there is a wallowed out place where a huge piece of machinery became bogged when the pier was being built.  That, in itself, is a story worth telling some day but for now, we will focus on that hole.  Although it is a nice size space that is void of any marsh grass, time and tide has filled it with mud so it is quite shallow (even during high tide).  A myriad of small fishes take advantage of the relative safety of this enclosed area.  Bull minnows and small mullet congregate here to be free from any threat of being eaten by large fish.  For the longest time, all they have had to worry about was the shore birds.  Today, however, things changed.  This territory became dangerous for the little fishies!   While I was sitting there watching several hundred tiny mullet play, a large fish attacked the group!  Oh, my!  I stared into the water.  Sure enough, a redfish was in the small pool.  It had come down a narrow chute of water from the Bayou.  This is the only entrance into the pool that a fish this size could possibly use.  I watched as the redfish chased the mullet around in the small pool of water.  The mullet had no escape.  I wondered why they did not head out the same narrow channel that the redfish had used to enter.  Nope.  Round and round they went in the pool with the redfish always right behind them.  After a bit, I noticed bull minnows rushing out of the small chute.  Then a large flounder shuffled into the pool.  Wow!  This is unusual!  Now there were two large fish in the small pool.  Both were making a fine meal of the little mullet.

With this whole tale, keep in mind that small, fourteen inch or so wide chute is merely about a foot deep at high tide.  But..our tide was falling.  Water was rapidly leaving out of the chute and back into the Bayou.  Soon there would be no exit for any of the fish.  The smaller ones could make it out fine in just a couple of inches of water.  The flounder might be ok swimming through the same but that redfish..that redfish needed at least a good eight inches of water.  Still, he lingered.

I did not make it back to the pier before dark to see if the fish had made it safely out of the pool and back into the Bayou.  If not, I would never know.  Some larger critter would be happy finding a free meal stranded on the mudflats.  Still, I have to wonder..what possessed those two large fish to venture into such a confined area.  It was not because of a lack of food in the Bayou.  I could fully see thousands of the small mullet and other tiny fishes making ripples there.  Why journey a good hundred feet or so down a narrow chute to wind up in a pool of water that was rapidly diminishing.  Fish have no sense!  Or..they like to live on the dangerous side and take huge chances!