Joann Merritt's Essays

The Soda Lake Fisherman
April, 1990

We were so excited when we saw the old fisherman land his “big one” that we sounded like a pack of coyotes yipping and barking. These sounds that Vera, Norman, Don and I made were appropriate since the old fisherman was Canis latrans, a coyote, hereafter referred to as Old Soda. When we are with the Zachrys we seem to find coyotes behaving strangely (See Fight of the Century, November 1987 Phalarope or perhaps our attention is usually directed more toward birds and the Zachrys open our eyes to other events.

From our vantage point on the caliche hill we could observe Old Soda with our binoculars or scope without frightening him away. Since there had been some illegal shooting there a few days before this happened, we supposed that Old Soda was trying to retrieve a dead bird from the lake. He was pawing at some object in the water when we noticed that the object was moving. Vera was looking through the scope and saw that the object was a fish thrashing about in the shallow water - Old Soda was fishing! That’s when our yipping started as none of us had ever seen a coyote fishing before.

Like all good fishermen Old Soda waited patiently on the narrow peninsula. At first it appeared that he was actually in the water. When the fish came close enough to the shore Old Soda reached out with his paw and soon caught the fish that was approximately fourteen inches long. Carrying his morning’s catch in his mouth Old Soda ambled down the spit of land and into the brush where he could enjoy his well-deserved meal.

The Midkiff Bog Coyote who lost his fight with the turkeys should take lessons from the successful Old Soda.

Mark Twain said “The coyote is a living, breathing allegory of want…always poor, out of luck, and friendless…even the fleas would desert him for a velocipede.” Wild Animals of North America states “Even its enemies concede its durability. It thrives in the face of all attempts to trap, poison, or blast it to oblivion.” Few people are friends of the coyote, but Old Soda provided us with some good entertainment March 5th, 1990.