Otis Fishing Report for September 27, 2023: Our first sighting of Otis is a little before 10:00 a.m. Katmai time on River Watch, and he’s just the way we like him — with his mouth full! We didn’t have the opportunity to see the size of his meal, but he sure seemed to enjoy it quite well. 😀
A minute later, Otis snags another (or it snags him), and this one is a pretty big one. This trend continues for 10 or so minutes
Our boy is off cams a short bit and around 11:00 a.m., he swims up to the bank here and picks up a good sized snack. He snuggles in and takes his time enjoying it with his ever-faithful Alice standing guard.
Again, he’s off cams — a longer while this time — and we catch up to him later with his fishing buddy. They appear to be checking out the refisherator in the Fish Cache together.
Rinse, repeat… and then… Dr. Seuss enters the chat.
Sometimes we struggle to determine whether Otis’ waggle made a fish wiggle or the wiggle was by way of the waggle of the fish itself. Today was such a day. We say “the struggle of a Fish Counter is real,” but the rule is that the *struggle* of the Fish has to produce a wiggle. Thems the rules.
But then… Special circumstances. Exceptions to the rule. Fish Happens. You know? So we put it to chat to help us determine whether a particular Fish was a Fish or whether it was a Dead Fish. It looks so… fresh. Did it wiggle in the water? And then expire just as Otis caught it? Did Otis waggle the wiggle out of it and it was alive when he caught it? Did we, per chance, imagine the wiggle in our imaginary Fish Count?
In the end and after Polling the Chat, we decided this Fish… is a FISH because, as Zen so aptly put it, “A DOA Fish that’s DOA is still a Fish, is just a Fish that’s DOA.” And since it seemed whole, and there is an allowable margin of error… and further supporting our position, Thethreebears67 noted that it must’ve moved in order to catch Otis’ eye; bjb1117 says it could’ve died as soon as Otis picked it up — “bearly” a live one; and Stormy points out that *mostly* dead is not the same as all dead.
And so with (almost) a consensus from our Chatters Consulting, Ltd., we’re calling this one… FISH! 😀 The only one of the day on cam, but it was fun for chat and filled our boy’s belly. 😀
Following that, Otis is off cams again, and re-appears next to his fishing buddy at the Fish Cache again (which we invariably type as “Fiche” — is that a word?) But we digress. Back to our story… cams are panning the River, of course, so we can’t say where Otis has been all day, but it seems he’s been, primarily, loop-de-looping this area we’re calling the Fish Cache. His new buddy hangs out there and other bears come and go. We do believe “Fish Cache” is an appropriate moniker.
And THAT is where we saw him last, where we’ll pretend he is as we head off to snoozles, and where you can imagine he’s currently fishing (or checking the refisherator), as we total the fish count from midnight until now for September 27 at 1 Fish + 9 DOAs on cam.
Until tomorrow, you know the drill: Wishes for Fishes and Wiggles for Waggles! ♥
P.S. You can drop the Dr. Seuss voice now. Unless you like it, in which case, carry on! 😉
Bear cam images in this post are copyright National Park Service and/or Explore.org
