Wildlife

[Anderoo]

I saw an amazing sight the other day on the Thames - every animal in the world (in fact, two of each), all on a boat captained by a bearded guy.

[bluerinse]

Living in Sweden for a couple of years I used to get out fishing a lot, and the fishing was great, I was sat in a boat on a lake in Kinvsta close to a reed bed when I heard a lot of noise, shortly a Moose pushed through the reeds, it was shoulder deep in the water, when it saw me it panicked and tried to flee, this took a while as it was so deep in the water, the commotion nearly capsized the boat.

[richjones]

Not sure whether this would be classed as impressive or just damn right shocking....

 

 

Yesterday i was fishing a local pond which is pretty much overrun with pike, but does contain other species. About an hour before packing up i heard one of the 2 resident grebes splashing and making awful screeching sounds over in the middle of the lake. The bird was dissapearing tail first under the water and being held there for a couple of seconds before coming back up. this happened about 5 times before the bird managed to struggle free. However it only managed to swim away about 15 feet when the same process started again. This time the bird made no return.

 

Have any other anglers witnessed these kind of pike attacks? (the pikes mouth was clearly visible holdIng the grebes leg)

[noodle996]

http://www.totalcoarsefishing.com/cgi-bin/...?num=1182966476

 

I started a similar thread here after seeing salmon leaping for the 1st time in real life

[Anthony78]

My most memorable sight has to be a pair of grebes doing there mating dance on a club lake. It was amazing! I don't know if anybody else has seen this but it consists of the male(I think) imitating everything the female does. She does this little dance where she turnes her head side to side and he has to imitate her exactly. It was like one bird in front of a mirror they were so "in-sink". Then they both dissappeared under the water and re-appeared with a mouthfull of weed each and proceeded to do there little dance. Unforunately they didn't finish which apparently consists of them, literally, running on water in tandem. It's still the most incredible thing I have ever seen and what makes it even more special is that my partner was there to see it.

I've also seen an otter while barbel fishing on the River Wye. It was just getting dark and I was watching my rod tip when I saw something out the corner of my eye. When I turned around I just spotted him darting off through the long grass. Scared the bloody life out of me as I didn't think they were so big.

Saw a pair of grebes swimming under water on a shallow stretch of the River Teme.

And been woken up by a hedgehog running around in side of my bivvy while carp fishing at Whelford pools.

 

I love this sport

Ant

[Neil G]

Not sure whether this would be classed as impressive or just damn right shocking....

Yesterday i was fishing a local pond which is pretty much overrun with pike, but does contain other species. About an hour before packing up i heard one of the 2 resident grebes splashing and making awful screeching sounds over in the middle of the lake. The bird was dissapearing tail first under the water and being held there for a couple of seconds before coming back up. this happened about 5 times before the bird managed to struggle free. However it only managed to swim away about 15 feet when the same process started again. This time the bird made no return.

 

Have any other anglers witnessed these kind of pike attacks? (the pikes mouth was clearly visible holdIng the grebes leg)

 

 

I've never witnessed anything like that but have heard plenty of stories of Pike attacking small ducks etc.

 

Sounds like a great place to fish

[gozzer]

Not sure whether this would be classed as impressive or just damn right shocking....

Yesterday i was fishing a local pond which is pretty much overrun with pike, but does contain other species. About an hour before packing up i heard one of the 2 resident grebes splashing and making awful screeching sounds over in the middle of the lake. The bird was disappearing tail first under the water and being held there for a couple of seconds before coming back up. this happened about 5 times before the bird managed to struggle free. However it only managed to swim away about 15 feet when the same process started again. This time the bird made no return.

 

Have any other anglers witnessed these kind of pike attacks? (the pikes mouth was clearly visible holdIng the grebes leg)

 

I've seen it a couple of times rich.

Once on the Yorks Ouse. I was fishing a match opposite the willows on the Linton stretch. I heard a commotion from the other side, and saw a mallard disappear backwards under the water. It came back to the surface, and there was a swirl and the tail of a large pike broke surface next to the bird.

The bird then went under again, and never resurfaced.

 

Once on the Calder on the 'Bream fields' stretch. Another Mallard did the same thing, only this time it went under several times. It eventually surfaced and drifted into the main flow, but it was 'sinking'. It was very low in the water, and getting lower. It drifted down out of sight, and my brother who was fishing down from me came up and said, " You'll never guess what I've just seen, a sinking duck!". By the time it had got to him, just the head and neck were visible!

I thought at first the attack might have been from a mink, but there was a swirl from the same place later and it was definitely a pike.

 

John.

[RPM]

I agree with others, a great thread and some fantastic tales. I have seen a couple of kingfishers but only a flash of blue from a distance and a few watervoles and, of course, the obligatory robin eating maggots all day. Sadly, though, nothing like some of the likes mentioned here.

[dapper64]

I was fishing on the river air once and a squirrel on the opposite bank ran out onto the end of a branch that was dangling in the water and started padding the water with its front feet,after about a minute or so it jumped in and swam to the other side .lucky there were no pike about ,that would 've been a right tale.

[medwaygreen]

Hi all,

 

Last season i was fishing one of my club waters and caught in the corner of my eye a movement in the water, then to my surprise a Grass snake came swimming across the swim, it must have been a least 3ft long with a beautiful bright yellow collar.

 

What a sight.