Unusual happenings.

john step · Nov 2, 2014

This week I caught a 7 or 8 lb carp on a 4inch perch livebait intended for bigger perch.Fair and squarely hooked in the mouth.
A couple of weeks ago I had an unstoppable run and bite off which I put down to a large eel on light tackle. Now I am not so sure..Carp? There are no pike here.

This got me thinking about other unusual things over the years. Such as.....

Two otter cubs on Wallers Haven romping in my tackle on the bank. I was up to my thighs wading and probably didn't fit a human profile.(some say I never do)
As I was concerned for my sandwiches I tried to shoo them away with my landing net to no avail. Then someone walked along the bank and they were off like a shot.

Other things like.. a great crested grebe surfacing between my waders on the Thames and trying to take a dace I was bringing to hand....

A swift I had to rescue from the drink that flew into my rod as I lifted it to strike....

Twice the sight of a heron ungainly flapping and hovering to take a small fish off the surface. Once in France and once in Hertfordshire....

What are your unusual happenings?

nicepix · Nov 2, 2014

I had a 22lb carp a couple of years ago that had a 3" red & white plug complete with wire trace in its mouth. And on the same water I regularly see red kites snatching live fish from the surface.

binka · Nov 2, 2014

I once wandered along a gravel bar on the Soar close to Kegworth one evening where the gravels gradually cut into a high flood bank meaning that the only way out was the way in and after a few minutes something moving caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.

As I looked around I saw the jet black, silky coat of a mink casually trundling towards me without a fear or a care in the world... I picked up my landing net and turned it around and banged the handle a few inches from it's nose and it just walked around it, straight by my feet and slooped off into the water and swam downriver.

This was very shorty after Animal Rights protesters had raided a mink farm in Loughborough and released the occupants.

flightliner · Nov 2, 2014

Bream fishing a few weeks ago I heard light twitterings above.
looking up I was surprised to see five, maybe six pied wagtails chasing off a sparrow hawk.

dorsetandchub · Nov 2, 2014

Sitting on my box, fishing the Staffs Worcester Canal and experiencing a "knocking" on the bottom of the box, putting down pole and moving the box to find a mole not looking too impressed with me.

maggot_dangler · Nov 2, 2014

Earlier on this year .
Minding my own fishing on my local cut here a Heron 30 or so meters up from me sizing up his lunch gets bugged by a Seagull next thing the Heron just stabbed upwards with it's beak and bingo dead Seagull in the cut ..

S-Kippy · Nov 2, 2014

Twice I've had a mole surface inside my cap when it was lying on the ground. Bit disconcerting when your hat starts shuffling off down the bank. Not often you get a good look at a mole....lovely little fellers IMO.

binka · Nov 2, 2014

Actually yes moles seem quite popular as the unexpected, I once took the missus to a day ticket stretch on the Trent on a glorious Sunday afternoon and as she sat reading at the top of the bank I became aware of small mounds of soil rolling down the bank towards me and sure enough when I looked around and saw the ground breaking upwards 'ol Moley was busy at work.

chub_on_the_block · Nov 2, 2014

While wading midstream on the Kennet some years ago a grass snake swam upriver towards me, passing inches from my waders as it made its way to the bank behind me.

Paul Boote · Nov 2, 2014

Big Thames weirpool in the mid 1980s, me barbel fishing, another angler livebaiting for pike.

"I'm in!" he shouted to me. "Could you bring your [big] net....?"

Great fight.

9-pound barbel.

nicepix · Nov 2, 2014

S-Kippy said:
Twice I've had a mole surface inside my cap when it was lying on the ground. Bit disconcerting when your hat starts shuffling off down the bank. Not often you get a good look at a mole....lovely little fellers IMO.

I agree S-Kippy. Can't get enough of 'em

law · Nov 2, 2014

Ive seen several moles pop up next to me
Had a rudd on a mepps lure
Caught numerous carp on squid intended for cats
And had a mouse eat out of my hand 2 nights in a row. I called him Pete

Paul Boote · Nov 2, 2014

Moles.

Hot summer of 2006. Sat on my bum one early afternoon on a mix of soft earth, trodden-down reeds and grass, legering for barbel on the Bucks - Middx Colne.

Sat with my knees drawn slightly up when the earth immediately below my shorts-covered crotch erupted and out popped two clearly very angry fighting moles. One left the earth and ran for the cover of some still-standing bankside reeds, the other bobbed back down into the hole.

No fish that day, but an interesting memory.

S-Kippy · Nov 2, 2014

nicepix said:
I agree S-Kippy. Can't get enough of 'em

Leave em alone.......poor little blokes !

simon dunbar · Nov 2, 2014

A few years ago , on the edge of a lake and a mole popped up through the ground between my feet !

Pike fishing on the Dorset Stour with a gudgeon bait , rod wrenches round and the pike fight like no other starts ...I 'm thinking 20 lbs + pike new best ,turned out to be a 9 lbs 9 oz Sea Bass !

A Rod bending bite on the River Cauvery , strange fight and a rather large, rather angry turtle surfaces !

Paul Boote · Nov 2, 2014

simon dunbar said:
A Rod bending bite on the River Cauvery , strange fight and a rather large, rather angry turtle surfaces !

Good to see someone else "specialising" in large river turtles.

I can also boast of dusk-hooked Canadian beaver (3) on seven- and eight-weight single-handed fly tackle whilst sea-trouting in Clarkson Country (Tierra del Fuego). Bothered to play one out and right into the shallows (and so technically landing it - a good "40") before grabbing the line just above the leader and pulling the hook out of its furry hide. Slow but heavy fighters. Quite reminded of some fish species that some people get terribly excited about.

Judas Priest · Nov 2, 2014

Many years ago whilst fishing a lake with a council rubbish tip behind it I had a rat come and sit watching the glowing bobbin for about a week. I knew it was the same rat because it had fur missing from its flank. Every night as it got dark I'd hear him/her coming crashing down the bank, whereupon he/she would sit next to the bobbin swaying in time to the rhythmic swinging. Fascinating critter who I called Rodney and fed sausages during my stay.

Only last month in the pitch dark whilst making a brew at the back of my van I had a badger hurtle past chasing some creature no more than a couple of feet away.

dorsetandchub · Nov 2, 2014

Twenty odd years ago now but fishing on a Hampshire stillwater and getting close to a ton of bream (yes, I know, bring on the comments!!

) when the army turned up to defuse a hand grenade about 100 yards away.

Pointing out to the Captain that I was out of range and therefore didn't feel the need to move, he looked at his Staff Sergeant who pointed out, in less than diplomatic terms, that I could either move or BE moved.

By the time I got back, the bream had gone (and the grenade explosion was a disappointment as well).

Ho hum.

Paul Boote · Nov 2, 2014

Okay, time for the One That I Nearly Didn't Survive.

Welsh river. After midnight. Bible Black full overcast. Thigh-deep in a pool with a high, steep, forested far-bank. Sea-trout flyfishing.

Large Friesian cow falls off aforesaid High Bank into the river a few yards in front of me.

Both survived.

Just.

simon dunbar · Nov 2, 2014

Paul Boote said:
Mole

immediately below my shorts-covered crotch .

.

Surely you're not still sporting those skin tight ' Casting for Gold ' shorts !!
Lol.

Unusual happenings.

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