Strange catch today on topwater lure

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TritonGlenn

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Took out two friends today and headed to Choke Canyon. We had been fishing topwater for a while this morning, with a small amount of success.



We pull up to a spot and make a few casts, and my buddy in the middle of the boat casts out his topwater popper by a tree. I hear my friend in the back of the boat warn him "Hey, that bird is about to get your lure". My buddy in the middle replies "Naw, he won't..." (and at that moment, the bird grabs the lure and tries to fly off with it. :eek:



As we are all looking at each other, trying to figure out what we are going to do now, my friend is holding his rod in the air, looking like he is flying a bird shaped kite. He reeled the bird in gently, and just as he got it to the boat, the bird tried to kick the lure out of his mouth with his foot. Wrong move. Now his foot is hooked too, and connected to his beak. He drops like a rock to the water, and my two friends retrieve him into the boat, as I try to maintain boat position off the submerged timber is excessive winds. My friend from the back comes up behind the bird and grabs it by the back, as the friend that caught it gently removes the hooks - first from the birds foot, and then, as the second friend is helping by holding the head firmly - the beak. Neither hook was past the barb, so they came out relatively easy, and I don't think the bird was harmed at all. The second friend walked to the back of the boat with the bird, and tossed him into the air. You know that stupid thing just hung around us, flying behind the boat about 10 feet in the air for a little while.



Anyone else ever have this happen?



All the best,

Glenn
 
I've had an owl dive at my topwater toad but I was able to get it away from it. Only bird I have actually caught was a seagull that flew into my line during a cast and got tangled. He was suprisingly calm while I unwrapped him.
 
Last year I had a similar situation. I was fishing topwater over an open water hump with a Skitterprop. An osprey hit this thing hard. It was flipping out with this thing stuck in it's claws and started to fly away. I started retreiving the line and the osprey spiraled down into the water. SPLASH! Now it was relly pissed off! As it started freaking out again a bald eagle came down hard on the osprey! Now I had an eagle on the osprey on the skitterprop! Where was the camera? I ended up cutting the osprey off and now there was 2 eagles harassing the osprey. Divebombing and hitting as well. When the osprey managed to get a few feet off of the water it circled around and headed for shore. I could hear the rattles in the lure as it flew over me! I'm sure that the eagles would have gotten the osprey after following it around, since it had 2 treble hooks stuck into it's talons.
 
When I was m uch younger I had a friend catch a bat on a fly rod with a fly. The bat took it out of the air. My second experience with something like this, at the coast the guy I was fishing with had a gull hit his bait. He wanted the bait back so he reeled it in and extracted the hook and the bird flew away.
 
I have this happen to me fairly often (minus the foot hooking). Next time throw a towel over them and it makes removal much easier as it settles them down (I learned this trick on the Gulf coast where they dive-bomb live bait). Sometimes you just can't get it away from them if they are hell bent to eat it.
 
I bird flew into the path on my cast once, gave me a terrible backlash but the bird flew on. Do gators count? I've had two of them hooked before.
 
Our resident gulls around here will give you Heck with a chrome Redfin. When I find one quicker than I am, I reel them in, cover with a towel, remove hooks and release. Sometimes though, the little buggers just go right back to chasing your plug!! They're almost as dumb as a pelican!!! :lol:
 
Yeah, the bird that caught my friends lure was a little gull.



I've had two weird catches myself.



I caught a mallard drake on an overhand cast with a 3 treble jerkbait. I was casting in a small apartment pond, that notoriously had tons of ducks hanging around it because the residents would feed them. One minute I'm casting, the next minute I hear a whack, squawk, and look down at a severely backlashed reel. Then I look up to see a mallard with my jerkbait planted in its back, coming in for a hard landing on the pond. He got rid of it pretty quickly though. I don't think it stuck to him at all - just whacked him good, hung up in the feathers for a minute and then all the flapping dislodged it.



Second one - about two years ago, fishing a topwater frog near the bank in a small neighborhood pond. I'm in the boat, casting near the shoreline on the backside of a weed line. I see something on the bank jumping around. Every time I moved the lure, the thing on the bank would move. I thought is was a small bird or something. All of a sudden, it jumps in the water, making a huge splash, right on top of my lure. It was heavier than I thought it would be, and actually put up a good fight. I got it into the boat - BIG frog that had tried to eat (or do something else to) my SPRO frog. He had one of the hooks in his mouth.



All the best,

Glenn
 
I was on Lake Conroe and was fishing around an old pier. At the time there were probably 3 or 4 dozen Coots(Mud Ducks, etc) sitting on the pier. As I made a cast with a rattletrap across the end of the pier, they all took off, I am thinking not good. A couple hit the line and the bait hit the water, okay all is good, until I realize one has the line wrapped around its wing. I reel this thing in while a bunch of workers on the shore watch, the bird is making a racket, I am laughing. I get it on the back deck, by myself of course and proceed to unravel a ticked off duck. When I let it go the guys on the bank applauded!
 
My daughter caught a Mallard duck while bass fishing in California.



Didn't hook it, but it flew into her line while she was casting and wrapped itsef up to the point it couldn't fly. We reeled it in and gently unwrapped it and turned it loose, no worse for wear.:D:D
 
Elteewon and I were out last week and a beaver came up beside his Jitterbug. Stared at it for a bit and then just swam around us. I could believe it out of an otter, but this was weird behavior for a beaver.
 
I hooked a snapping turtle on a SPRO Bronzeye frog. Luckily it just caught the edge of his shell. He pulled pretty good! ;)



Gene
 
In WI while night fishing I caught 3 bats. They kept getting tangled in the line. Embarassed to say I took one of my $25 SPRO swimbaits and kept catching big catfish. I got disgusted and finally just pu it away!



TOXIC
 
Hard story to tell but in the early seventies, just really learning to Bass fish, my friend and I read an article in BASS about the lunkers that came out only at night!!

There was this small lake in Salisbury, MD that we fished a lot and caught good sized fish, or so we thought, 3 1/2 and 4 lb. Bass. So I figured, if we caught that size during the day we should go at night and get some monsters!:rolleyes: The lake was about a little over two hours from both my friend and me, but we loaded up and headed out.

We got to the ramp and put the boat in and with just the trolling motor, headed to one of my favorite spots..I forget what I was using but I think it was a Bill Dance Top-Water of some kind and my friend was using the old 'Arbogast Jitterbug'. The trouble was, every time one of us would cast, we had a ridiculous amount of Bats bombarding us. Every once in a while one would get the lure but then drop it some how, pretty amazing! What got both of us though was that every time our rod would go back to cast, it seemed like every Bat in the world would dive at us, not the lures:eek:

So after about an hour, both of these tough a$$ Viet Nam combat heroes were getting out of the lake, heading for the lakeside all night store, getting a case of National Premium Beer and then driving all the way home just to be laughed at by our wives.:lol::lol:



Uncle Billy
 
Speaking of night fishing, I caught a 20 pound carp by the tail one night while (don't tell Glenn ;) ) jigging for walleye on a local river. They can pull hard when hooked in the mouth, but when you tail hook one, hold on. We were in a canoe and got pulled around for a few minutes till I could get him close enough to get the hook out. Never did get a walleye that night. :(



Gene
 

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