10 hours ago, lo n slo said:

a water snake got after my tiny torpedo (hold your laughter) one time. the faster i reeled, the faster he swam after it, til i dropped my rod and ran up the bank. the end. ?

You are lucky since you didn't catch it. I did catch one several years ago. If I told the whole story nobody would believe it.

Fishing the Historic James River above Osborne Landing and not getting many bites when an Osprey flew directly into the river about 25 feet away from me and grabbed a largemouth bass and took off.

 

Yes, I was angry at first and then started to laugh when I though how great Mother Nature can be for all of her animals.

 

So far I have never hooked any bird as I try to avoid them. A hooked bird can be a brutal adversary. 

On 10/30/2019 at 7:47 PM, Log Catcher said:

You are lucky since you didn't catch it. I did catch one several years ago. If I told the whole story nobody would believe it.

Do tell

 

On October 29, 2019 at 3:59 PM, Dirtyeggroll said:

I had an original custom painted DEPS 250 sitting on the back deck of my boat today when a bird swept in, landed on my back deck and picked it up and flew off and then proceeded to drop it in the middle of the lake about 100 yards away. I went over where it was dropped and searched and netted for about a half hour and then gave up.

 

I guess it looked realistic. I still can’t believe it.

The birds I can think of that could land on your boat deck and carry off a swimbait are Hawks, Eagles and Osprey's. The likely culprit is a Osprey, they tend to graph swimbaits in mid air when casting, never had any bird land in my boat while fishing. A Gull is the only bird bold enough to land on a boat with people.

Tom

 

Guess I'll have to take along a shotgun to protect my swimbaits. Some of them cost more than my shotgun.

I've had more than one frog hit a plastic worm.  This summer was a first, I had a frog hit...a frog.  Dang cannibals.

 

This summer, I also caught a cottonmouth bank fishing.  Thought my worm was stuck in the grass at the edge of the water, was bending down to see as the rod finally lifted up to reveal a 3 foot long or so cottonmouth hanging on the end.  My son said he'd never seen someone jump backwards and up so fast.

2 hours ago, WRB said:

A Gull is the only bird bold enough to land on a boat with people.

Tom

A Great Blue Heron landed in my boat .