What strange or usually -

[flightliner]

I once hooked a barbel on the river idle in very shallow, gin clear water. All the time I was playing it from a high bank it was constantly being harried and tail nipped by a pike of some three to four pound which was only around half the weight of the barbel,
Back in the very early sixties I was at Damflask reservoir myself fishing between the two pipes section when over about an hours duration the entire water in front of me became black on the surface with countless thousands of gudgeon, they lazed there for the rest of the afternoon then almost on the blow of some inaudible whistle they just melted away.They later fed up some very big pike when they had got thro an annual stocking of trout!!!. Saw it again on a local pond behind a working mens club a few years later when what appeared to be all the fish in the place were massed just subsurface. It must have been atmospherics or the like but great to witness.

 

[Derek Gibson]

I take your point Tiinker, but the wounds to the pike's head were awful. And one gill plate was almost ripped off. There was also a gaping wound just between the pectoral fins, that was p*****g blood. Very sad, as that would have been the fish of a lifetime for many.

 

[richiekelly]

Fishing in Holland there was a Heron that we saw every day, it stood on the bank which was about two feet above the water, every time it tried to catch a fish it fell in, it never seemed to learn and we never saw it catch anything.

After a 3 day session I was packing up rods still out my holdall was the last thing to come out of my bivvie, when I moved it there was a snake underneath it, I am terrified of snakes had to get my lad to move it.

Another time in Holland some small birds were taking a dust bath near to me when a sparrow hawk swooped down and took one of them.

 

[mick b]

My latest...

On the LIF we have a tame Robin (Graham knows him well) the other day this little friend perched on my rod as I was trotting the stream.

He sat just above the rod handle but had caught my line around one foot as he landed, I gently sweaked the line with my finger so it tickled his foot and he fluttered up and the line fell off safely.

Ive also had a blackbird sit on my rod several times, but never a kingfisher, one day I hope.

So many others, but I will leave them for later.


I have a feeling this thread will run and run

 

[tiinker]

I take your point Tiinker, but the wounds to the pike's head were awful. And one gill plate was almost ripped off. There was also a gaping wound just between the pectoral fins, that was p*****g blood. Very sad, as that would have been the fish of a lifetime for many.

Not so much with pike anglers but anglers who do not know the pike tend to think they are a very hardy fish while the opposite is true even transporting them has its own problems.

---------- Post added at 03:34 ---------- Previous post was at 03:25 ----------

I saw a very big otter in the sea while on holiday in Portugal at Villamoura I told the gardener in the Tivoli Hotel where we were staying and he said that the otters had stolen all the fish out of the man made pond in the hotel. I used to fish for the mackerel early in the morning before anyone was about. At first I thought it was a small seal till I saw its tail.

 

[lambert1]

I remember as a kid fishing a small stream and having a little fox cub sat on the other bank watching me with his head on one side totally absorbed in what I was doing. I also remember feeding maggots to Robins who could make it quite obvious what they wanted! More recently I had a Stag jump in the river up steam from me and nonchalantly swim across. But I have to say that I don't think of Deer as particularly timid creatures any more after they broke into my garden and ate my entire crop of Sweetcorn this Autumn and frequently trash other gardens.

 

[thx1138]

...Also once saw three kingfishers sat together at the same time.

like this?...

 

[flightliner]

I was fishing a wide section of the lower trent some years ago and saw a grey squirrel opposite me leap into the water and start swimming to my bank.
It was some two yards from reaching me when it changed its mind and swam back to where it came from--- must have been a female!

 

[theartist]

Was fishing the Gade sitting on the bank with my waders in the water when a mink slid in next to me, only to return by my legs five seconds later with what appeared to be the biggest crayfish in the river. Still confused by the blur of fur and claws i leapt up and watched it struggle to get through the patch of nettles like a dog with a stick trying to get through a doorway. Anyhow i went round to the other side of the nettles to see the mink make it through and rather than run it dropped the crayfish at my feet. A mexican stand-off occurred and after about a minute i decided to back of and let it have its lunch.

To this day i am a bit annoyed as i had a camera in my pocket all that time but was too frozen with bemusement to do anything other than stare.

 

[jacksharp]

When on a deep sea wrecking boat trip out of Caernarfon. We flogged it, in a big diesel cat at 20 knots, for two hours to get to the wrecks in St George's Channel. Not a bird in the sky most of the way. As soon as the engines went off and the drifts started around a dozen Fulmars appeared from nowhere and spent the rest of the day sitting 5 yards off the boat waiting for scraps, etc.

Once, while flyfishing in the sea, off the mouth of the River Dyssini in Cardigan Bay, I was up to my nuts around 50yds offshore and fishing big popper flies across a reef for bass. I was getting nowt and it soon became apparent why. A big bull grey seal broke surface about 10 yards from me. I shat myself and reflected on the fact that I was standing in the element of a creature the size of a mini, with teeth like a Rottweiler, attempting to catch his dinner! Gave me severe pause for reflection!

 

[john step]

Just remembered another bizarre occurrence. Whilst standing knee deep in waders on the Wallers Haven in a match I became aware of a disturbance behind me on the grass. Two otter cubs were frolicking around quite noisily and running in and out of my tackle and jacket. I was concerned that they might bite through something so I waived the landing net at them. They took absolutely no notice. They only scurried away when someone walked along the bank. I can only assume that they didn't recognize someone with legs hidden by water as human. It was at a cow drink so that's what I presumably was!
Which is probably why you can sneak up on shy chub in a cow field providing you follow the cows along the bank and then drop down below the skyline.

 

[terry m]

like this?...

Yes James, although I was not lucky enough to get a picture.

 

[ronroach]

Fishing a small lake in Shropshire 48 yrs ago, I was 12. Two Kingfishers landed on my rod tip. Bang bang. They stayed for oh about 1 1/2 seconds. Wow.

In the mid 80s I looked after a salmon/sea trout fishery for a number of years on the west coast of Eire, Connemara-very remote. 20 paces from my cottage the river connecting the system passed under a bridge which flowed into a broad shallow pool as it entered the lough. It was July/August and the pool was shalow, maybe 18" and crystal clear. I noticed a shoal of fry, small, about 1-2" long. They moved as a pack. Perhaps 100 of them, making a tight dark cloud as they twitched left and right. Then I noticed an Eel about a foot long on one side of them. It seemed to be pushing towards them and stopping when the moved away. As I watched four more same sized eels moved into the picture, spread around the fry in a pincer movement, pushing them towards the bank. The Eels were herding the fry slowly but surely into a small area where the bank went deeper into the land if that makes sense. Suddenly all hell broke loose and the fry leapt for their lives as the Eels rushed into them. The Eels didn't catch one and eat it, no. They simply bit everyone they could and hit the next one available. Wounded fry sank/fluttered to the bottom, the Eels continued their atttack with gusto. The mayhem lasted only a few seconds 10-20? Less. The fry vanished at high speed. When there were none left to injure the Eels then scoffed all the fallen quite quickly. Serpants. Then, they to disappeared. Crikey, what a show. So glad I had a free ticket!

Not far from that scene I fished one night for sea trout (white trout in Eire). Further down the river, 1/2 a mile from the Atlantic. It was around 2am, I was alone fly fishing. Rem this place is well remote. Nearest human is prob 2-3 miles away. I'm ok with things that go bump in the night. Used to that. Of course anyone who fishes for sea trout in the night will tell you the blackest darkest night is the best. Ooooer. All the usual suspects were close by, cows, foxes, rats and mice. All of a sudden the water erupted 3' to my left. And I mean erupted. Of course ones senses are on max alert because of the scene. I looked down and a great big Otter plonked itself on a rock beside me. I was cool (not ) he was cool. We slowly looked at each other and both stared Heron still. We held our gaze for at least 20 secs-a long time. That was and probably will remain the only time an otter and myself will be thinking the same thing...wtf ru?

Happy days

Ron

 

[tiinker]

When I used to fish between Plymouth and Guernsey especially in bad weather we would get emigrating birds hitch a lift on the boat. I have seen them come into the wheel house and sit on the skippers head. The only problem was sometimes we were going the opposite way to where they wanted to go. One season we found a sea mine and an other we nearly got run down by a royal navy frigate happy days.

 

[flightliner]

Tinker, that reminds me of a day I had a days cod bashing off a cobble on the yorkshire coast .
We were off flambro head in a fierce westerly, the boat was op n down like a yo yo (a bit like the contents of most on boards stomachs )and flying hard to get to the boat was a blackbird that had been blown away from land. It was being dive bombed by some greater black backed gulls and eventually exhausted it fell into the sea some twenty yards from our boat and safety. Despite guys on the boat lobbing full mussels at the gulls one came down and swallowed the blackbird in one fell swoop.Some time later we had to be escorted back to brid harbour by the lifeboat, everyone 'cept me and the skipper was lying in a pool of vomit in the bottom of the boat. Loads of cod tho that day.

 

[barbelboi]

I've taken go'er dace on free lined whole lobworm early season on a 4/6 hook - not the way I'd go for them intentionally but it happens...............

 

[tiinker]

Tinker, that reminds me of a day I had a days cod bashing off a cobble on the yorkshire coast .
We were off flambro head in a fierce westerly, the boat was op n down like a yo yo (a bit like the contents of most on boards stomachs )and flying hard to get to the boat was a blackbird that had been blown away from land. It was being dive bombed by some greater black backed gulls and eventually exhausted it fell into the sea some twenty yards from our boat and safety. Despite guys on the boat lobbing full mussels at the gulls one came down and swallowed the blackbird in one fell swoop.Some time later we had to be escorted back to brid harbour by the lifeboat, everyone 'cept me and the skipper was lying in a pool of vomit in the bottom of the boat. Loads of cod tho that day.

I have never been sea sick but I have been in the company of some that suffer. I was on a boat out of Brighton one day and a fella was being sick in a clear plastic bag this started off about six others. One of them had dentures and took them out and put them on the gunnel of all places you guessed it the fella next to him knocked them over the side.

 

[mickrigney]

Some years ago I was fishing Hollowell and what at first appeared to be a rat was seen swimming towards me across a bay which is approx 100 yards across. When it got closer I saw it was a mole and was swimming strongly. It came right in front of me but couldn't get up the stoney bank so I used the landing net and released it in the field behind me where it ran off none the worse.

 

[nicepix]

I once hooked a barbel on the river idle in very shallow, gin clear water. All the time I was playing it from a high bank it was constantly being harried and tail nipped by a pike of some three to four pound which was only around half the weight of the barbel,
Back in the very early sixties I was at Damflask reservoir myself fishing between the two pipes section when over about an hours duration the entire water in front of me became black on the surface with countless thousands of gudgeon, they lazed there for the rest of the afternoon then almost on the blow of some inaudible whistle they just melted away.They later fed up some very big pike when they had got thro an annual stocking of trout!!!. Saw it again on a local pond behind a working mens club a few years later when what appeared to be all the fish in the place were massed just subsurface. It must have been atmospherics or the like but great to witness.

Sorry, but don't believe that for a minute. I've been to Dam Flask loads of times and never seen a fish!

 

[Derek Gibson]

Sorry, but don't believe that for a minute. I've been to Dam Flask loads of times and never seen a fish!

Dont be so hard on yourself nicepix, if what you say is true it would represent the vast majority , at least from a quality fish perspective. The Dam has been known for as long as I can remember as a hard graft water, and I'm going back as far as when it was compulsory to enter your name in the log at the ticket hut. Very few have mastered the place consistently, but we do have one or two on here.