We went fishing at Lafayette Reservoir yesterday. No bites. Not even a nibble.

But we weren’t bored.

Lafayette Reservoir is small but it packs in a lot of wildlife. Turkeys strutted in the fields. Crows nested in the oaks. Blue herons waded in the shallows. Cormorants and bufflehead ducks dotted the water. And then the stars of the show, white pelicans. Dozens of them.

For such a small lake, the large number of pelicans seemed odd. Later, we found out why.

Mid-morning a flock of pelicans made a beeline for the dam. A curious truck was crawling down the ramp there. It was Fish & Game’s trout stocking truck. As it unloaded, excitement burst among the pelicans.

Before the truck could unleash its fishy cargo, a motorboat zipped onto the scene. Its mission? Keep the pelicans away while trout took their long slide to freedom through a PVC pipe.

For 45 minutes the boat shooed the pelicans away like he was shooing flies off a tuna salad at a buffet. If it strayed too far, the pelicans surged back near the pipe, eager to feast.

Once the boat left, the real action began. Pelicans camped near the dam in the shallows. Trout surfaced and chaos followed. Every 20 to 30 seconds another unlucky fish became lunch wiggling in a pelican’s pouch.

I counted 60 trout devoured in the short time we watched. No fishing success for us, but the pelicans? They had a feast.

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