Cleaning Up
Madison River, Montana
2015
When we moved to Montana in 1982 I don’t remember seeing any American White Pelicans like these around here, but over the years a fairly large colony of them has taken up residence on the Madison river near here (or else I finally started noticing them). I find them very intriguing and figure they must have some photo series potential much like my crow and raven images. As yet though, I’ve not really hit on any that I’m particularly enamored with–but I intend to keep trying!
A few years ago we tried to stock our POA’s lake with trout. Worked for about a year until the pelican’s found out. They are very dedicated fisherbirds. We no longer try to stock the lake. Haven’t seen as many pelicans around either, they migrated back to the large lakes stocked by the State DOW.
Steve, the stretch of the Madison where these pelicans hang out is also often thick with people fly fishing. I imagine neither group is particularly enamored with the competition for fish from the other group.