Critters you see while fishing… Why? Because I’m a terrible fisherman.

[Hammsolo]

I headed out fishing today. I saw countless fish; perch, bass, trout, carp and more. I caught exactly one... a tiny perch. I hooked into my first carp. It was a kick! I was bouncing a bonsai rig along the bottom with a coffee flavor gummy crawdad and it nailed it. My little rod and I got worked. It towed me around the lake for about 2 minutes. He‘s run out, and I’d work him back. Zzzzz reel reel reel zzzzzzz reel rinse and repeat. I finally got him up to the yak and went to dip the net and he yanked with everything it had and spit the lure! It was awesome!!!

In the end, the highlight of the day may have been other critters though. I saw turtles, piles of birds, but the highlight was this bachelor herd!

 

[Wild Bill]

I fish Oahe mostly. I see a lot of deer, and some pronghorn. See turkeys from time to time. Plenty of waterfowl. Lots of different non game birds that I’m not too keen on. My favorite is fishing in the morning during early spring and listening to drumming and booming of prairie chickens and sharptail.

 

[WildWill]

Was fishing in my kayak in the inner coastal around Freeport TX and ran into this guy. Looked bigger in person.

 

[crock239]

I think I've shared this before, but one of the coolest things I've ever seen...college buddy and I were fishing inshore in SC, our little jon boat was the only boat in the creek. Dolphins started strand fishing all around us, even going underneath our boat back and forth...had the whole creek rocking like a bathtub. It was awesome.

 

[FairWeather]

The small pond in the nearby city park that I fish most often is the only place I’ve ever seen wild pheasants. Having one of those cruise over your head is pretty neat.

Otherwise, it’s pretty typical to see blue heron, various ducks and geese, osprey, turkey vultures, hawks, and bald eagles. I’ve seen a doe twice along the river bank as well.

I don’t really get out into the backcountry for fishing, though, so nothing as neat as that bachelor heard comes around.

 

[mdcrossbow]

You see critters , I spot a fossil and fishing stops. My wife did a summer study at the Smithsonian behind the scenes of the paleontologist department. She opened her mouth and told one of the curators , mu husband find a lot of these.so she come home and ask me where I find so many fossils , thinking nothing of it I tell her. She intern tells the curator and he says WOW ! WE COMBED over that area well. LOL

 

[fishing4sanity]

I headed out fishing today. I saw countless fish; perch, bass, trout, carp and more. I caught exactly one... a tiny perch. I hooked into my first carp. It was a kick! I was bouncing a bonsai rig along the bottom with a coffee flavor gummy crawdad and it nailed it. My little rod and I got worked. It towed me around the lake for about 2 minutes. He‘s run out, and I’d work him back. Zzzzz reel reel reel zzzzzzz reel rinse and repeat. I finally got him up to the yak and went to dip the net and he yanked with everything it had and spit the lure! It was awesome!!!

In the end, the highlight of the day may have been other critters though. I saw turtles, piles of birds, but the highlight was this bachelor herd! View attachment 283387

I've been to that range many times, but never seen that good of moving targets there before.

 

[mtmuley]

Was fishing in my kayak in the inner coastal around Freeport TX and ran into this guy. Looked bigger in person.View attachment 283394

Yeah no way. We have grizzlies but not those. mtmuley

 

[MTLabrador]

This little guy was sitting like a dog eating berries and watching the river.

 

[Gellar]

I’ve seen moose, black bear, brown bear, wolves, otters and tons of deer while fishing. I’ve seen black bears swimming across small channels, a wolf in the bwca swimming from an island to mainland about 200 yards apart and I’ve seen deer swim long ways. I have a picture of a buck swimming across the main channel of the Mississippi. We saw a doe last week swimming between islands. You’d think they’d take the most direct route, but the islands this deer was swimming between were 20 yards at there closest point but it had started it’s swim at a point much further.

 

[Beignet]

I’ve had most of my bear encounters while fishing. They’re going down for a drink and with the river noise we can’t hear one another.

Had a family of otters follow me around a lake a few years back. I stopped fishing when I realized they were waiting for me when I’d released a slightly stunned fish then would swoop in and grab an easy meal.

 

[Murphyt]

Saw this mamma last week pike fishing.

 

[hank4elk]

We were trolling the Prince Rupert Sound for salmon. Had 2 fish in the 15' Norvenia boat. Blood on the floorboards.
A pod of Orcas came along side for a look see. Maybe a dozen.
I freaked when a big male came along side and eye balled us good from 10'. He was a good 5 feet longer than the boat and his dorsal fin was 5'-6' tall. He rolled his eye around and looked right at me. Grinning. Huge teeth in the grin.
They had us surrounded for a few minutes. The babies were bigger around than the side pontoons.
Then they just swam off.

 

[Hammsolo]

This is why I love getting outside. I go to hunt or fish and have amazing experiences that can’t be found on tickety tock, the book of faces, or the graham crack.

A couple of weeks ago I experienced my first small mouth bass spawn. I’m new to this shiz man. I‘ve always done adrenaline, but my knees aren’t agreeing right now. Stop judging me you judgers! I paddled around the reeds watching these big ol’ fish push them around and refuse to bite my hooks, but the coolest part was how I found the location.

My plan had been to head out to deeper trout waters. As I was unloading my kayak I turned to check on Harold and Maud on their nest. It has been fund to watch these osprey all spring, and that day didn’t disappoint. Harold was just flying in with breakfast for the kids when in my line of sight a big old bass leaped from the reeds snatching a dragon fly from the air. It was so freaking cool! Thanks to Harold and Maud I ended up patrolling the edges of the reeds all morning watching all sorts of interesting action.

All this when I could have been home scrolling…

 

[hank4elk]

Fishing for brookies in SW MT in 1975 on beaver ponds. Had a 22 with us for the grouse. We were sitting there eating trout and had 3 birds for dinner cooling near the water.
I asked Mike, "who would have a horse running around here"? He looked up from his fish and said, "that's no horse,RUN!" I looked at the horse, that became a cow moose and she was running towards us.
Mike was half way up a lodgepole when I jumped onto a nearby tree.
We sat in the trees as she pushed us around and snorted at us for about 15 minutes. Seemed like an hour. Then she went back were she came from.
Then we beat feet out of there.

 

[mdcrossbow]

I was up in ottawa quebec fishing the drop off from bogs and rock ledges. Said to my friend look at that stump that grew out of the bog. It was only about 10 yards from the boat. All of a sudden this massive thing moves and the biggest bull Moose I've every seen in any photo turns around and walks the the edge, towering over us. He was Turly the monarch of the area.

 

[Salmonchaser]

Bears and yoga instructors.

 

[gouch]

I was bank fishing for trout in my favorite reservoir last summer when an otter appeared. He would dive under and each time he surfaced he would be a little closer. I thought he was just curious about us at first but soon realized that it was the four nice trout I had on a stringer that he was interested in. He got to within about ten feet of the stringer and made a dive. I figured he was making his move, so I jumped up and headed for my stringer. Sure enough, he got to within a foot or so of my fish when he saw me coming and aborted the mission. Little did he know that with my bum knees he had plenty of time to snatch a meal.

At the same lake there are two pairs of eagles. One pair has learned that instead of hunting, fishing and scavenging that it is easier to just steal food. They sit and wait for an osprey to catch a fish then dive bomb him until he drops it then just take it and enjoy a meal. Two years ago, I watched an osprey catch a fish too big to fly away with, so he used his wings as flippers and swam to shore. As soon as he hit shore both eagles were right on top of him and took his prize. The osprey are learning though, this year I saw an osprey catch a small trout but instead of slowly flying up, shaking the water off his feathers, circling a couple of times and chirping with the delight of having caught breakfast, like they usually do. He jumped of the water and beat cheeks as fast as he could to get out a there. Sure enough, both eagles jumped into hot pursuit. I've never seen eagles fly that fast before, but the osprey had too big a lead, so they never caught him.