Wildlife encountered while fishing

Jamesy · Nov 19, 2011

This has probably been done before, but one of the things that struck me when I came back to Angling over four years ago was the proximity to wildlife we enjoy. Otters as predators aside, I've twice seen Otters on the hunt recently and not so long ago they were almost extinct. Also seen in no order or preference, Badgers, Muntjacs, Bewick Swans, Egrets, Mink, Buzzards,... Wolves, Bears, Beavers, Great Auks.
OK not all of them are true, but you get the picture.

waggy · Nov 19, 2011

I remember all night fishing for eels when I was 15, miles from anywhere, with one of the early luminous floats that you hand-painted yourself with luminous paint and lit up by a push-bike lamp on a stick. I was concentrating very hard on the faint float tip and got the shock of my life when a small, yappy dog blundered into me in the pitch-darkness. Immediately grabbed my rod rest on the reflex and taking a swipe in the general direction of the little beast I shouted very loudly, GEDARDOVIT! Suddenly, at least 50 mallard (or so it seemed) got into the air right under my rod with such a racket that I fell over on to my back.
Don't know who was wilder, me or them. Took some pluck to decide to stay, I'll tell you.

little oik · Nov 19, 2011

Pheasants scaring the bejesus out of me whilst sitting in a chair .A cow scaring doing the same thing at the Stewponds in Epsom in the middle of the night as the sirens for the "nut nut " hospitals were going off
As for normal stuff .
Mink
Otters
Pine Martins
Stoats
All sorts of birds including Corncrakes and water Rails .
And the normal sheep and cows in the farmers fields

No Badgers or foxes though.Although see the badgers regularly on the way to spots .Foxes are a rarity though and they are completely different to the town variety.(far better looking)

mark brailsford 2 · Nov 19, 2011

BIRDS: (the not so common ones)
yellow wagtail,
grey wagtail,
merlin,
black throated diver,
great crested grebe,
little grebe,
honey buzzard,
stonechat,
spotted flycatcher,
I could go on but it would take ages, other wildlife seen over the years include rare dragonfly and butterflies and the usual badgers, fox's and various deer.

mark

Philip · Nov 19, 2011

Two memorable ones that stand out for me ....

First was one time when I was fishing a canal in a remote corner of France. I arrived at dusk and bivved up for the night under an open umbrella by a nice streach of water. I was on a bed chair so my head was about 3 foot off the ground. Early morning I was woken my a strange snuffing sort of sound and opened my eyes to be confronted literally 6 inches from my face and looking directly at me what appeared to be an enourmous Rat. My reaction was as you can imagine to leap 10 foot into the air and the ensuring fight I had with my sleeping bag in a frantic attempt to burst out of it and run to freedom was of epic proportions.
...It turned out to be a Capybara and it appeared I had in fact bivved up in what seemed to be some kind of reserve for them as they were galloping about all over the place.

Other memory I had was on a tiny river in Australia that I was creeping along at dusk. I heard quite a comotion some way upsteam and went to invesitgate. There I found a paid of Duck billed platypus splashing about in the shallows. At first I doubted what i was seeing but on returning to the guest house were I was staying I recalled the sighting to the owner who told me that the tiny rivert was in fact known to hold them but not many people had seen them so I was lucky to have what was apparently a very rare sighting of these animals in the wild.

...Mind you I guess not many people other than anglers go creeping along tiny streams in the middle of nowere at dusk !

xenon · Nov 19, 2011

one of the few times I have come close to needing a change of underwear-creeping up on a gin clear chub swim through the undergrowth, disturbed half a dozen pheasants who all took off vertically a matter of feet away with a hell of a racket. Not something I would care to repeat anytime soon.

pellethead15 · Nov 19, 2011

haha pheasants taking off vertically in front of you are scary, when you get tucked hidden into the bankside growth and all the wild life excepts you or hasnt seen you are precious moments,like a kingfisher comes close,or a water vole, or if im lucky just at dusk seeing the ghostly sight of a barn owl coming out of the spinney across the field,and listening to bird music while fishing is,well it just is.

Merv Harrison · Nov 19, 2011

Seen, as most of you have, the regulars....but the only time I thought of doing a runner was when what I thought was a Giant Rat coming through the undergrowth on the River Trent, when I finally saw it, I realised it was a Coypu.

chub_on_the_block · Nov 19, 2011

Nothing major to report, but i would say that after a break from fishing of 20 years the increase in numbers of kingfishers is phenomenal. Dont think i ever saw one while fishing in the 1970s and 80s, now i see one literally everywhere i go - and sometimes up to half a dozen or so.

terry m · Nov 19, 2011

chub_on_the_block said:
Nothing major to report, but i would say that after a break from fishing of 20 years the increase in numbers of kingfishers is phenomenal. Dont think i ever saw one while fishing in the 1970s and 80s, now i see one literally everywhere i go - and sometimes up to half a dozen or so.

This is very true. This summer I was watching two kingfishers circling back to the same branch in a bush overhanging the water. They completed the circuit several times and I assumed they were a pair. I was just reminding myself that I had never seen two kingfishers together, when lo and behold a third joined them on the same branch! Three kingfishers within about 12 inches, stunning, truly stunning.

Simon K · Nov 20, 2011

Some of you have seen these pics before, but I think they're worth an outing for those that haven't?

Weird rustling in the reeds along with chewing sounds, something pink shows up next to my chair, so quickly grabbing a worm and dropping it in front of the little visitor...............

It shot out like a guided missile!
Had a wander round the chair looking for more.............

Then finally discovered the hidden entrance to Narnia..................

Shot back into the reeds and I hope is still snuffling around to this day.
Definitely a once in a lifetime encounter

mark brailsford 2 · Nov 20, 2011

chub_on_the_block said:
Nothing major to report, but i would say that after a break from fishing of 20 years the increase in numbers of kingfishers is phenomenal. Dont think i ever saw one while fishing in the 1970s and 80s, now i see one literally everywhere i go - and sometimes up to half a dozen or so.

We are getting them back on the river rother in chesterfield now...it gladdens my heart to see them coming back to the once toxic waters.

mark

russell_bush · Nov 20, 2011

I'll see you and raise you wild boar !

the indifferent crucian · Nov 20, 2011

There are three events that will stay with me forever, all fishing the same local drain.

One was the not so welcome sight of a small mink not three feet from my face. Another was the sight of a Chaffinch diving under and up to take a mayfly, cleverly breaking of its wings as it did so.

The last was a fox kill.....I think...not twenty feet from me in the dark one evening. The noise was appalling!

I never found out what it took, or if indeed it was successful, as the fox was yelping in pain throughout.

I'm not bad tracker, but I could find no trace of the incident the next day, but I will never forget how far I jumped up at that row....I'm lucky not to have fallen in a deep drain, down a six foot bank in the dark. That might have ended badly!

dezza · Nov 20, 2011

Let me think.

Leopard, Servil, Black backed Jackal, Baboon, Various types of monkey, Various types of snake including Puffadder, Egyptian Cobra, Python, Herald Snake, Ringhals and Berg Adder, Something like 12 species of antelope, Hippo, Wildebeest, Buffalo and Zebra.

A dirty great centipede.

The vast majority of British wild life including wildcat. I saw an Otter down the Trent a little while ago.

The most terriying? Without doubt Hippo, followed by that centipede.

I have never seen a lion or an elephant whilst fishing.

agamemnon · Nov 20, 2011

ive seen a kingfisher about 10' away from me before now when ive been sat down the local reservoir and also had the fun of thinking i had a giant rat from a james herbert book feeding from my ground bait one night when i woke for a leak, it turned out to be a coypu though i didnt sleep well after seeing that.
the most memorable animal ive seen though was not when i was fishing but when i was in the army and out on exercise in germany. we had camped in a wood and all of a sudden there was lots of shouting and people running all over the place as a large family of wild boar came charging through small clearing, the lovely blighters trashed every thing in their path. pretty scarry at the time but a blo*dy good laugh after they had all left us behind.

flightliner · Nov 20, 2011

I was out yesterday and heard a birds wingbeat getting ever closer, on turning around a buzzard missed me by a mere few inches - tho the one that always makes me smile is when retrieving a float back upriver and a large dragonfly comes out of the tall bankside reeds and grasses to investigate it.

Sean Meeghan · Nov 20, 2011

Other than the all too common otter, my unusual beasties are mostly birds. I've seen and photographed a night heron, heard and then finally seen a nightjar and had an owl (not sure what make) sit in a bush watching my isotope for a while before swooping down for a closer look.

Pete Shears · Nov 20, 2011

Three kingfishers taking it turns to perch on my two carp rods early one morning,a female sparrowhawk grabbing a blackbird & landing less than two feet from my feet in February this year,a fox standing on my landing net less thaan six feet from me trying to make out what I was,an osprey catching roach whilst I was blanking & feeding a nuthatch boilies which it promptly hammered into the ridges of the barkin a nearby oak tree and yestarday spending a few minutes watching a kingfisher hovering like a hummingbird in the shallow corner of the reservoir.

newbieneil · Nov 20, 2011

There isnt a more frightening thing in life than a pheasant jumping out of nowhere right next to you! the screaching/clucking noise is terrible! it happened to me yesterday and my heart is only just slowing down now!...on lighter note i was fishing the warks avon recently and in the field opposite a young deer came bounding out of nowhere and stoood in the middle of this field for about 10 mins that was a beautifull sight! recently fishing the severn there were a group of cows shagging and the noise they were making was so loud it sounded like a bloody fog horn and it was echoeing down the valley-almost deafening! also heard an owl twit-twooing for the first time the other day which was nice

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