Of all the ways to fish, surface fishing has to be my favorite. Fly rod, conventional tackle, whatever. That explosive surface strike, the violence of a fish attacking whatever you drag on the water… it’s like a triple dose of adrenaline mixed with pure caffeine, straight to the heart. It never gets old, never stops being exhilarating.

Even watching action videos on the surface makes me want it. I can get lost by falling into a YouTube fish burrow full of fish hitting surface lures. I’ve seen my share of “fly fishing with mice” and “Amazon peacock bass smashing plugs”, but the video below of catfish chasing birds? This is new, and I’m wondering: how widespread is this behavior and can I get in on the action?

If that doesn’t blow your mind, watch this clip from David Attenborough of giant trevally feeding on a ‘bird hatch’.

It was only a matter of time before some anglers put two and two together and came up with a “bird” fly to match the hatch.

So there you go. Catfish snatching birds from the surface and giant trevally demolishing feathery snacks. It seems the line between “baitfish” and “bird” is blurrier than we thought. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some “bird” flies to tie, I know of a muddy river nearby that has giant catfish. KB

“The gods do not deduct from the time allotted to man the hours spent fishing.” -Herbert Hoover