as an off shot to the strange things found streamside thread in the sound off forum, I thought this would be a good topic for us to relate to others the wonders of nature that we’ve all seen while out and about. i just wish i could of had some pics from some of the unexpected encounters.
While fishing the lower Youghiogheny River in SW PA a friend and I were walking the RR track up river when I heard rustling in the weeds and all of a sudden a field mouse came bursting out about 10ft in front of us, a martin was just a few feet behind it. I was in the lead and as I took a stride the mouse ran right under my boot, the martin run up to about 2 ft from my boot and stopped, we both froze. the martin was looking at my boot then looked up at me, it looked like its eyes bugged out in surprise as it turned tail and ran back a ways. It stopped and looked back 1 time then took off into the weeds. My friend looked at each other dumbfounded and laughed. I lifted my foot and the mouse was curled up, probably frozen by fear because it took a little nudge from my toe to get it to move.
Many, many springs ago my fishing mentor and myself were out fishing a trout stream in SE Minnesota. It’s a small stream and saw a flock of cedar wax wings across the stream near a bush. We stopped and watched and then couldn’t help but laugh. The birds were eating last seasons berries off the bush and they were drunk. Some were so drunk they couldn’t even hop on the ground. It was so funny we stood there not 20 feet from them and laughed outloud but the birds were having such a good time they never did fly away.
As a youngster living in England I used to go beach fishing at night, most times a few red fox would come along and try to help themselfs to the bait. When I told my then girlfriend (for the last 23 years my wife) she insisted on coming along, we bought some chips for supper but ended up feeding the chips to the fox’s.
They came right up to within about 15ft and stayed for most of the night.
All the best.
Mike
On the corner of Madison Ave. and State St., I witnessed a seagull swoop down and swallow a sparrow not five feet above the sidewalk. Everbody on the corner just looked at each other and said “Holy Sh-t!” Nobody’d ever seen anything like it before or even knew gulls ate other birds.
The gorgeous coyote sitting on the rail of Lake Shore Drive by North Ave. stopped traffic for a mile.
I suppose the coolest nature encounter I’ve had while fly fishing Lost Cove Creek in the Wilson Creek drainage here in North Carolina
was watching a very big red tailed hawk swooping in, settling comfortably on a tree branch, and devouring a snake he had caught.
Luckily I had my pocket binoculars with me. It only took Mr. Hawk about 30 minutes to devour that grey colored snake.
Have no idea what particular snake it was but it met a natural fate, I suppose. It was an encounter you would never forget.
First a bear cub and then the mother came to visit while I was fishing this year. They were non threatening so I continued to fish. I was about 20 feet from them and at a stream crossing point. A second cub then wandered by. One bear cub killed by a car EARLIER in the year and this mother and two cubs were seen in the area. Could this mama bear have had 3 cubs?
I and a friend stumbled upon a large Gorilla standing about ten feet out from the shore on the old geezer hole above the Cantara loop on the Upper Sacramento River a few years back.
In the Gorilla’s arms was an attractive young lady, dressed in flip flops, daisy dukes and a tank top. Actually it was just a very large man in a gorilla suit…
I’ve enjoyed a number of interesting wildlife encounters while fishing. Once while fishing the canals of Miami along the endge of the Everglades, I was creeping along keeping one eye on the water for looking for bass and the other on the path watching for water moccasins. It was a somewhat spontaneous fishing trip and I was wearing flip flops so I wanted to be careful. As I crept along, all of a sudden, grass and dirt was flying immediately to my right and I froze as a six foot alligator tore across the tops of my feet as he made his mad dash for the water. I had been so quiet, that I didn’t wake him up until I was between him and the canal. I’m still not sure who was more startled by the encounter.
More recently, last week in fact, I was out in my kayak fishing the 50 acre lake I live on. We always have a couple of pairs of beavers and too many muskrats so I see them quite often. I heard a splash over by a nearby dock so I stopped to look what it was. Up popped an otter about 10 feet from my kayak. He stopped and a sat up straight in the water up to get a good look at me. Then, he swam about 30 feet away and started squeaking/whistling looking back where he had come from. Sure enough, up pops his mate. She was even more interested in me and swam very close to the kayak and stopped, watching me. The male (I assumed) then made a short cough or barking noise and she dove under to swim away. I’ve only seen otters one other time in this lake when I saw a female and three pups. The pups were about 2 feet long and she was taking them up the bank along the dam presumably to go down to the South River which is only about 50 yards away. The last pup was dragging a 12 inch bass along which was quite a feat for such a little guy. He was determined to keep his fish and him mom and siblings waited for him on top of the dam where he settled down for lunch.
I hve seen this on several occasions and I imagine others have also. An osprey dives down and captures a fish. The osprey struggles to gain altitude to return to its nest just to be attacked by a bald eagle which chases the osprey until it finally releases the fish which the eagle then grabs and flies off with its reward.
I saw something close to this. An opsprey caught a fish and was flying away with it when a bald eagle dove on it but just before it hit the osprey it rolled over upside down, flew under the osprey and snatched the fish out of the osprey’s talons in mid air. Pretty darn cool.
The thought of being anywhere near a bear with cubs haunts me! On a lighter note, while changing flies wearing a camo-colored cap with a red logo on its bill, a hummingbird appeared right in front of me, probably attracted to the red. It stayed there for what seemed like 30 seconds. It was really impressive to get that close a look, hearing the buzz of its wings and the breeze created by them.
The latest ?
A week ago this morning I was sitting in a canoe in a back bay in mid-coast Maine, concentrating on backing out a “wind knot”
I hear breathing right next to me and glance over to see a harbor seal looking at me right at the gunnel, close enough to lick my elbow.
I proceed to scream like a girl
I was hiking in to fish Cheeseman Canyon at a point where the trail was quite high on the steep canyon wall so the tops of pines trees on the downslope were at eye level. I came eye to eye with a bald eagle resting on a pine branch. We observed each other for a few minutes, definitely the closest I’ve ever been in the wild. At lunch, I sat in the shade on a large flat boulder at streamside, under two large rocks that leaned against each other to form a natural shelter. As I ate, I was watching a pod of huge trout who were resting in the shade next to a large boulder in the water a few feet away. As I sat there a really big and well-antlered buck came down to the bank across the stream from me and, not noticing me, stopped to drink for awhile.
I didn’t catch a single fish that day, but it was one of my favorite fishing days ever!
Last year, I went exploring in my kayak. I intended to paddle down a creek, then turn up another creek and attempt to get to a low-head dam that I had found on Google Earth. Should have been about a 4 mile round-trip. I didn’t make it, but did see a couple raccoons at the water’s edge, under a rootball of a large tree. They looked at me, froze, then slowly crawled up into the tangle of roots.
Also, last year, I had a beaver encounter on the same creek, but several miles upstream:
In the mid-90’s while fishing the canyon section of the Little Naches River in western Washington, I walked up on a deer kill along the high-side trail. It was being watched by a cougar and her cub. I talked to her and backed away, slid my way down the bank to the creek, and worked my way downstream. Then about 400yds downstream I looked up to see her sitting watching me from the bank above. She had been shadowing me all along. That unnerved me enough to make me pack it in and head straight away for the truck. I slept that night in my tarp lean-to next to my truck, and it was a tough moment when it came time to shut off the lantern.
A couple of weeks ago while nymphing the Upper Owens river, a small sparrow looking bird lands on my fishing pole. It sat there for about 20 seconds staring at me and me staring at him. Finally flew away, but what a terrible drift that cast was with me never moving my rod. Never had that happen to me.
Several members of my fly club often fish at Fuller Lake, near Emigrant Gap in northern CA. We share the fishing with an osprey. He’s learned it is easier to grab trout after the fly fishers hook them. After a half dozen reports like this one of our guys got some great video of the osprey stealing his trout. Luckily for the osprey the fish came unhooked so he could take it back to his nest for dinner. If I can find the video I’ll post it here.
