 Having studied their amusing antics for weeks on end, while sailing up the full length of the South and North Atlantic, I'm now an expert on the behaviour of the flying fish.
Well, we all do that, don't we? Do a little bit of something and then think we're experts; and yachtsmen, of course, are the prime example. It takes one to know one...
There are more than a few differences between the fish of the North and the South, a reflection of human patterns, perhaps.
In the south, the fish are predominately silver below, with black on the upper
side. In the north, there is a noticeably silver-blue tinge to their colour which I never saw in the south.
The southern fish take off away from the boat, or a predator, mainly across the wind, whereas northern fish prefer to fly into the wind, like a glider taking off, needing the extra lift.
The biggest difference of all is that southern fish display a huge variety of escape techniques and cunning ploys which
seem completely unknown to their northern cousins.
This must be due to the intense level of attack under which they find
themselves, from the sea and even the air, especially in the area between
the islands of St. Helena and Ascension.
Both water and air teem with life which seems to exist for the sole purpose of chasing the poor flying fish. In this area, one commonly sees upwards of a thousand flying fish a day, a sad contrast to the virtual deserts of the North Atlantic.
Shoals of them lift off from around your boat, and at night land on the deck and even in the cockpit around you - which can be a little unnerving in the dark. With activity at this level you have plenty of opportunity to study them.
Where there are baitfish, there are game fish, so that if you see lots of flying fish, there are always plenty of dorado (the mahi-mahi or dolphin fish), tuna of various kinds, and even billfish around
as well as marlin, sailfish, swordfish, and others.
Anywhere near Ascension, you're likely to see the fabulous Frigate or Man
o' War bird, the master of aerial attack, which looks like nothing so much as a
Stuka* dive-bomber as it plummets down in
a vertical crash-dive attack, pulling out of the dive inches from the water surface to grab the hapless victim: a flying fish.
It's tough being at the bottom of the food chain out here.
The Frigate-bird has an interesting symbiotic relationship with the dorado. It soars high in the sky, covering many miles of ocean to find a co-operative dorado. The dorado hunts just below the surface, putting up the fish like a bird-dog. The
Frigate-bird dives on the flying fish, which then have the unenviable decision to make as to whether to keep flying and become
bird food, or to dive and be fish food. One of the two hunters generally gets to eat.
In answer to these threats, the poor old southern flying fish has mastered a number of escape
manouevres. These ploys, of admirable variety, sometimes require strength and stamina of what must be Olympian fish proportions.
In categories of ascending (sorry) difficulty, these are:
- The
Glide: used only when the fish doesn't really feel threatened and is just playing safe; a casual
manouevre. Leaving the water across, or into, the wind, it glides perhaps ten or twenty yards to the splashdown.
- The Mass
Glide: used in a similar way when there's a group.
- The
Beat: a more labour-intensive version of the Glide. A flying fish doesn't just
glide, it beats its 'wings' exactly as a bird does, when it needs to, although the wings are, of course,
its pectoral fins.
A bird can't fly very far without beating its wings, and neither can a flying fish.
You often see them beat, glide and beat again, as they deem necessary.
In the Beat, the fish presumably feels slightly more threatened, and so works a little harder. Good for thirty or more yards.
- The
Curve: a variation on the Beat where the fish curves round ninety degrees across the wind in mid-flight. A rather pretty effect.
- The
S-Bend: a development of the foregoing where the fish curves first one way, then the other. Impressive.
- The
Shotgun: in contrast to the north, where there are a lot of singletons,
the southern fish tend to concentrate in shoals, often of vast numbers.
There's safety in numbers, when you're being chased from above and below, and devil take the hindmost. They make full use of mass tactics for their
survival and, in the Shotgun, a group of ten or twenty fish will explode from almost the same spot, spraying out in an arc like pellets from a blunderbuss.
- The Mass
Formation: from twenty to fifty or more individuals, an unstoppable number, emerge in perfect formation, and beat their way to safety for up to fifty yards.
- The Up And
Over: an individual, flying close to the surface, annoyingly encounters a wave blocking his progress. He jinks up the front face of the wave and down the back, going on his way. When repeated over successive waves, this produces a rather amusing effect, worthy of a commentary by Eddie
Waring.**
An airline pilot pal of mine regales us, frequently, with alarming tales of planes so heavily overloaded
that they can hardly leave the ground and have to fly on 'ground effect' until they can build up enough speed to
climb. Apparently, the air is effectively 'thicker' close to the
ground as there's nowhere for it to go, to escape from the pressure of the wings.
The Up And Over fish must be using this factor
- The Pebble
Skip: although beating its wings for all it's worth, a fish finds itself uncomfortably near the surface. It arches
its back downward, so that the tail contacts the surface first, on landing, and bounces off, meeting the surface a few yards further
on.
This is repeated many times. No doubt very confusing and annoying to the chasing dorado. Cunning.
- The
Marathon: an individual of great stamina - or just frightened out of
its wits - keeps on going, and going, and going. Fifty to a hundred yards. Wow.
- The
V.T.O.L.***: performed only by an accomplished veteran of Olympian strength - or a very, very, frightened fish?
The fish exits the sea with an almost vertical take-off, to ten or twelve feet of altitude, hovers
awhile and then descends at the same steep angle. By which time the attacker
below has, presumably, left. Not a good move with Frigate-birds about.
- Putting It On The
Step: a pilot's term for a method of conserving fuel by climbing to a slightly higher altitude than you
need and then, with easy engine revs, taking a gradual, long, descent toward the destination. The fish works hard to get to three or four feet up, then glides for a good distance to the splash. Good thing I read all those Gavin Lyall
novels. (Ed: Ex-pilot Gavin Lyall is a
writer of 'thrillers' - i.e. exciting novels.)
- The
Confused: a mass explosion in all directions. Obviously surprised by a predator, they just don't know
what they're doing. Generally one or two fall back, very close by, and try to get off again. Someone isn't going to make it.
I have a book on the fishes of the North Atlantic, by Alwyne Wheeler, the eminent
fish-ologist - a professor of it, I believe - in which he states that flying fish don't actually 'beat' their fins to fly, they just
glide.
In the South Atlantic you will easily see ten thousand of them in a voyage of any
length. A fair proportion of those are close to the boat and can clearly be seen to beat,
glide and beat again.
Evidently he is only referring to the North Atlantic variety - a poor, weak, relative of
its southern cousin.
Another misleading factor may be that the 'wings' are almost transparent, and their beat
so fast, like that of a hummingbird, that this may be invisible from the deck of a ship.
There do seem to be several differences between the flying fish of the north and the south.
The presence of flying fish
in the area means that the ocean is alive there, and there are bound to be fish worth catching if you troll a lure behind the boat.
The reverse is also true. No flying fish equals no anything else. If there isn't food for them, there won't be for anything else - or so it seems.
With flying fish around, you might see whales, dolphins and all kinds of larger
fish.
No flying fish around? That bit of ocean is barren.
Not a hard and fast rule of course - you'll catch stuff where there aren't any
flying fish to be seen, but you'll have to work much harder to do it.
I never had to wait more than two hours or so, to get a bite when
fishing, but then I knew when to try and when it simply wasn't worth it. After the first couple of times
I had trolled a lure with no flying fish to be seen, and waited half a day for a bite, I knew when not to try.
That was usually in the poor, bare, North Atlantic, naturally. But we won't count those episodes in my fishing time totals, OK?
*
Sturtzkampfbomber - the World War II Messerschmidt
dive-bomber (aircraft).
** Eddie
Waring was a famous British rugby commentator who developed a fan
following devoted to his turn of phrase.
*** Vertical Take-Off and Landing.
Our
thanks to Chris Price for that fascinating treatise. He certainly sailed
far enough to get a good look at his subject. Cape Town to Horta is 6000 miles as the
fish flies...
Chris is our Steel Boat editor - you'll find him in the Technical
section, which is only fitting for a 'techie'.
He describes himself as an 'anorak' but
we feel he's being too modest... he's really more of an
'oilskin'...
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