Swimming with the fish

My parents live on the Mississippi river, only five miles from my house. Water is one of my passions. I'm over at their house every hot day of the summer, swimming, snorkeling or lounging on an air mattress.

I try to squeeze every moment out of summer. After all, this is Minnesota and our winters generally last six months. That gives me plenty of time to pursue my other passion--staying inside where it's warm.

I love the peace of the river. When I'm in the water, ducks swim past less then 10 feet away. Or we'll see muskrat or mink. I also enjoy chasing fish while I'm snorkeling--trying to get as close to a northern or bass as I can. Sunfish are much less of a challenge.

They won't tolerate being chased any more than other fish, but they have curious natures, so if I stay still, they'll often come within a few feet to see what I am. And in the last few weeks, my dad has taught the sunnies that humans are a source of food.

He started feeding them, throwing the food a few feet away, then a little closer. In less than an hour, he had them eating straight from his fingers. Then he got the rest of us in on it--my mom, husband, nieces and nephews. What do we feed them? Snails. My dad crushes them and takes out the innards. This is something way beyond my eww threshold, but I'll take the snail after it's shell-less and let the sunnies eat from my fingers. Fish suck in food like a vacuum. Kind of a neat sensation.

The first day, we fed 2 sunnies. The next day, 4 came. Now there are 12 who come begging. All well and good if we have something to feed them. If we don't, they keep trying. They'll nip at our fingers and toes. Sunnies don't have teeth, just stiff ridges inside their lips. So it doesn't hurt when they suck at a fingertip, but it's startling if I'm not expecting it. And they stalk us. We feed them in the shallows, so I thought they'd learn that if we're out deeper, we have no food.

Nope.

At the first sight of arms and legs in the water, they come swimming into the deep. Oh sure, at first it was fun. "Aw, here comes that sunny. How cute." He swam at me with a determined look in his eyes. I thought he was going to swim between my knees until, YOW. He tried to eat a freckle above my knee. On a leg, they can get enough flesh to hurt. The thing left a hickey! I'm thinking, great. I have to go home and explain to my husband why there's a hickey on my inner thigh.

They're really getting aggressive. My husband, Brian, was feeding them and ran out of snails in that area. One of them sort of bumped into his chest. Then another one rammed his diving mask three times. What was that? Some kind of fishy shake-down? Human contact turned innocent fish into an angry mob.

We got out of the water and sat on the dock. I looked to the right and saw half a dozen sunnies beside the dock. Watching us. Waiting.

One day I was floating in the water--a great way to relax stiff shoulders and neck after a morning of writing--when I felt a tug on my wedding ring. Thieves, too! Trying to take my ring and pawn it for more snails. And they made the attempt another day. Then tried for my mom's ring a couple of times.

Okay, it's still sort of neat to have our own little pet fish. One of them has developed a fondness for the bright blue and purple flowers on my swimsuit. It will hover just inches in front of me, looking at those flowers. Then it'll circle around. As long as I keep my hands out of the water, and keep a wary eye out for signs that it's going for a spot on my leg, it's kind of fun.