Fish Story

We were just coming up to Confederation Bridge and stopped for the obligatory photograph. Jim crossed the small red sand beach and set up his tripod on some rocks. The bridge curved away into the distance. I wandered around and eventually came to join him. As I crossed the beach I saw a skinny fish, about five inches long, lying on the sand. He was about six feet away from the rising tide line. He flopped lamely on the sand. I gritted my teeth, picked him up and quickly tossed him into the water. I waited for Jim. A pointy silver thing about the size of a thick pencil was poking up from the sand. I looked again. It looked back at me. As I stared, it wiggled and jigged and then threw itself right out of the sand. There on the sand in front of me lay another wiggling fish.

I screamed.

We began scanning the beach. A few more silver points were protruding. Soon there was a fish beside us, then a fish behind us, then more. The sunlight shone on smooth patches of sand – highlighting its heaving and bouncing as more fish prepared to emerge. Within ten minutes there were at least 50 wriggling fish scattered on that small strip of sand.

We looked over to the next small beach. A flock of seagulls were standing around with the sand - fish flipping at their feet. Occasionally one would casually peck at one with his beak.

“You don’t often see seagulls too full to eat free food,” Jim said.

I presented myself at the visitors centre. “ I have just seen fish wriggling out of the sand down at the beach.”

The receptionist looked me over. “I’ll get the naturalist for you.”

Caplin was what we were seeing. The whole thing is a bit of a mystery but in years gone by, some beaches in Newfoundland were completely covered in masses of caplin doing what we’d just seen them do. The theory is that these fish burrow into the sand (while they are still underwater) and spawn.

“I saw it myself about three weeks ago,” the naturalist told us.

I was glad to hear I hadn’t lost my mind.