One of the reasons I love fishing is that it takes you to beautiful places in search of beautiful things. If you’ve ever held a tuna, or a salmon, or a trout, or any number of other fish, you know that these can be beautiful creatures.

New photos from aerial photographer Wayne Davis help make this point. Flying over Cape Cod bay recently, he spotted huge schools of striped bass. So numerous are the stripers, that they remind me of the sight of a large flock of starlings against the sky. They’re awesome, in the true sense of that word.

One of the things I love about these photos is how they elevate bass. In my opinion, striped bass often do not rise to the top of the list of “beautiful” fish. Their stripes are geometric, their color palette more limited, more two-toned, than many of their hard-tailed saltwater companions. This doesn’t diminish my admiration for them, or my love of chasing them. I just don’t think of them as stunning in the same way as opalescence of a false albacore. These photos make a different case.