Your Preyed On Catches

[BearBio]

Saltwater fishing in SoCal: A few sharks taking fish. My mom hooked a GIANT white seabass. She was kinda short and had backed away from the rail. The skipper was yelling shark and asking for the shotgun. Suddenly the line went slack. My dad told her a big hammerhead had taken the sea bass. The shark took it right behind the pectoral fin (where you would behead it while cleaning). The length of the remainder was ~32", the otoliths were greater than 1", and she took the boat jackpot! Several meals outa it!

Lost a few fish to pelicans=mostly mackerel. In the Sierras, hornets were great for descending on rainbows while you were cleaning them.

[DaveNJ]

Real talk... I was hoping to hear a story about Salmon River anglers snagging someone's fishing while they were reeling it in.

Enjoying all these, though. Nothing like the drama of nature.

[novisor12]

A buddy hooked a 16 inch sheepshead in the niagara river w/6# test. His rod doubled over while he was reeling it in and several minutes later he got a muskie that looked to be close to 60 inches to the side of the boat. We looked at it wondering what we were going to do next and it let go. It was pretty bloody and the sheepshead was toast. To this day that was still the biggest muskie I've ever seen.

I've seen several muskie landed that have eaten smallmouth bass and when I was a kid I got yelled at a few times for hooking a bass and not reeling it in on purpose with hopes of it getting eaten by a muskie. This always caused lots of tangles.

[Flykuni3]

Re the Great blue heron, I once watched one commit a horrific act on land, in a city park. The bird was stalking over a gopher hole. The poor beast emerged, pushing dirt as they do, and the heron speared it and lifted it. But it was a fatty, and struggling, and the gopher wriggled out of the jaws of death twice as I watched, fascinated, horrified...third time was it, heron got the gopher into its maw, and the poor thing was choked down whole. And alive.

[Dwight]

A barracuda once ate a bonefish I hooked on the edge of a flat while wading. Two passes/bites and the entire bonefish was gone. Another time, I hooked an incredibly strong permit while wading in Florida. It took me an hour and a half with the rod bent into the grip, walking backwards and reeling forward to gain enough line to get the fish within a few steps of tailing. A large shark that was swimming around me earlier in the fight reappeared out of nowhere and sent the permit on another freight-train run that ended in two bumps after I loosened my drag to give the permit a chance. My fly line was intact, but the shark severed my leader 150yds out, which was less line than the permit took on its initial run. I almost certainly killed a great fish that day and I remember it as a dark moment. The experience left me with that feeling of regret that I set out with my rod that day.

[Canewrap]

Wow, that sounds like a desperate bird. I've never heard of heron eating anything like that and away from the water.

[bassman]

Up in northern MN there is an appropriately named Dumbbell Lake. Both for it's shape and the people who fished it. Anyway, the DNR decided to get in on the musky kick going on all over MN and WI back then by stocking everything with 'em. Well there was a small lake off the beaten track called Wye Lake that had a lot of fathead minnows (I used to trap it) and the DNR put a bunch of musky fingerlings in it as a rearing pond. They grew quickly up to 24-28" or so, then tapered off. They then trap netted the heck out of it and stocked dozens of musky in Dumbbell Lake, which was full of rock bass, smallmouth, suckers and walleyes. Those musky had a field day and grew like crazy. Thing was people fishing walleyes seldom got a limit of fish without at least one experience of a musky tearing one off the hook. You'd be quietly fishing with a half dozen other boats scattered around when a yell would go up and another musky tore off a walleye.

I used to pound WI waters for musky back then and maybe get one per two days of fishing or so. Fished Dumbbell for musky and often took a half dozen a day. A friend and I were fishing walleye when one grabbed his walleye and he coaxed it in with little pressure up next to the boat. It was easily in the 20# category and I quietly slipped a net under it and lifted it up. It went crazy and I flipped the net and dumped and it actually porpoised a couple of times running away from that experience. Fishing with another friend one time we had about a half dozen walleye on a stringer. My friend said look over the side right now. I looked and under the walleye were about 4 or 5 musky debating about them and they ran from 20" to 20#s. I slapped the water with my rod and off they went and we put the walleye in the boat and covered them with a wet rag until we left.

[Flykuni3]

Wow, that sounds like a desperate bird. I've never heard of heron eating anything like that and away from the water.

I later checked up on it, and they will eat whatever is handy, so to speak -- and since we've been in drought years perhaps their fish and frog diet was curtailed.

looked again, yup, small mammals, anything moving I guess: http://animalia.bio/great-blue-heron

[Dave Westburg]

The loons at Meadow Lakes fishing camp in BC specialize in stealing Kamloops trout off the line or lurking around the boat and ambushing the fish you're trying to release. I tuck a slingshot and biogegradable shot into my fishing duffle. A few shots over the head and they'll back off and leave me alone.

[dublhaul]

Was thinking about this. Remember once when I was fishing Armstrong's. Hooked a piddling rainbow, maybe 10"-12". Started stripping it in, and it was more/less surfing in over a fairly deep riffle. All of a sudden, there was a yellow/brown flash, and a big brown (+20"?) grabbed it, shook it, and dropped it and disappeared into the depths. I pulled it in, half scaled, and half alive. I released it, although I'm doubtful of its survival.

Have had several examples of "everything is food to something bigger and faster" in the salt. Have had sharks chase big 60#-100# tarpon. Remember breaking one off, so it could hopefully escape. Seconds after the leader snapped, there was a pretty major explosion, and we saw a big patch of red (blood) where the tarpon was. Hated that.

When things are hot and heavy at the coast during false albacore season, allies and blues will be munching on baitfish, the sharks can show up, and all of a sudden the predators become the prey. It's not unusual to have a 10-lb or larger albie stripping line, suddenly feel slack, and reel in half a fish. Here's a friend holding one I caught . . . half of. Note the bite radius . . . and single clean bite.

[firehole]

6 or 7 years ago while fishing the Gallatin River near the YNP border I hooked a 16" cuttbow. As I steered the fish within 10' of my net a big splash occurred startling me and a pelican took off with my fish. I couldn't believe it was pelican until I found out through research that pelican's actually have a small nesting area along the Gallatin.
Dennis

[Sparcegrey]

I have had dolphin take my sea trout, pelicans take Red fish, and sharks what ever they want.

chuck

[Shrimpman]

The loons at Meadow Lakes fishing camp in BC specialize in stealing Kamloops trout off the line or lurking around the boat and ambushing the fish you're trying to release. I tuck a slingshot and biogegradable shot into my fishing duffle. A few shots over the head and they'll back off and leave me alone.

I do my lake fishing from a float tube and can often not escape loon families that have been educated for generations on how to head toward any commotion and grab the free Rainbows. It's especially annoying when they grab large fish only to let them settle on the bottom dead, over and over.
They look impressive "flying" under your dangling feet, circling the tube, but I eventually bounce a small rock off them with the slingshot to encourage them to head to the other side of the lake. Sometimes casting a line across their back works, too.

[redietz]

I had a mink grab a trout that I had just released. The mink then swam over to me proudly displaying the fish, as if to say "you dropped something ..."

[LeeO]

[DatsunDoc]

I hooked a 11 inch or so rainbow trout in Little River in the Smokey Mountain Nation Park. In the "old foiks hole" at Metcalf bottoms. That is a big fish for me in the park. A very large (20" plus and maybe plus by a lot) brown trout came from the riffle behind me, over a ledge right beside my legs, and swallowed the trout. The brown then laid down on the bottom in the pool in about 8' of water where I could see it. I hung on with my 5x leader for what seems like a long time. Finally I could stand it no more so I started exerting pressure. The large trout disgorged the small trout and I landed and released it. The small trout seemed okay. All this happened in very clear water so I could see and knew what was going on the whole time. Just nothing else to do about it. I was glad to have the experience. Probably my top moment in 30 years of fishing in the park.

I got a kick out of this one as the same thing happened to me on the same river but farther upstream! A buddy and I were taking turns catching rainbows and I hooked a nice one and when fighting it my line went slack as the fish came towards us and my buddy was giving me a hard time about my fish handling skills. I looked down and a huge brown had my rainbow its mouth and was shaking his head back and forth. He looked up and saw us and spit out the rainbow. A landed the rainbow and released him. This whole time we were silent and in disbelief and my friend finally broke the silence and said "yeah, I saw it..."

[Doug K]

from this rock ledge you could see the whole circle of life.. little fishies tight up against the rock, shoals of shark mackerel would swoop in and attack, followed closely by big sharks.. I kept this fish, then stopped fishing as any released fish would be gobbled up quickly..



Further down the coast were big spanish mackerel (similar to US king mackerel). I cast, hooked a good one 4ft or so, it flashed once on the surface then turned into a freight train headed to Africa.. big old Penn 49 with 40lb line, took a lot of trying to break off that shark. My brother made a cast, we were high on the rocks above the waves, I looked out and saw his fish entirely surrounded by six bronze whalers glaring at each other..
Plenty of fish but no hope of evading the gentlemen in grey suits..

Once on the Green River below Flaming Gorge, friend was bringing in a nice 15" brown, up behind it came a brown about three feet long.. The next four years we dragged big saltwater streamers through that pool but never saw him again..

[wb4tjh]

Many years ago while fishing the Spring River some miles below Mammoth Springs, Ark., i caught a small sunfish. I was about to release it when I noticed a domestic cat watching me. On impulse, I tossed the little fish to it and it grabbed it and ran off. Later I saw the cat had returned. I caught a small trout, tosssed it to the cat, and again it ran off wimth the fish in its mouth. A litle while later, the cat returned, sitting in the same place about 10 feet from me. I tossed another small trout to the cat, which grabbed it and ran up the bank toward an old barn. I decided to follow the cat this time and when I got to the barn, I understood what was going on....the cat had a litter of six kittens who aalready fighting over the fish. Judging from the amouth of fish remains around them, these were some well fed kittens. This waa a very resourcful mamma cat.

[bluesjay]

Hi Guys, A White Pelican stole a Cutbow from right at my feet which I was planning on eating, while I was landing another Cutbow which I did manage to eat. It still makes me made at the whole bunch of 'em.

Jay Edwards

[LeeO]