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The best thing you’ve seen whilst fishing

Gavin Burt

Gavin Burt

Senior Member & Supporter
I’ll go first.

About three years ago I was fishing a stretch of the W.Avon super early in the morning.

I arrived at 5am and put some hemp out over a beautiful fog-covered rover.

I was sat there tucking into a coffee and heard this almighty crash to the right of me. My immediate thought was “cormorant”, but upon closer inspection saw these huge antlers crossing the river.

They were attached to a stag’s head, which then crossed the entire width of the river, legged it up the steep bank, turned around, looked at me and then hoped over the wire fence and headed towards a nearby woods.

I literally sat there with my mouth open for about 5-minutes. It was a surreal sight and one that I don’t think I’ll ever top.

Actually, saying that. My first visit to Manor Farm I encountered a guy snorkelling on the near side of the bank looking for Roman artefacts. I only spotted him as he had these stupid horns on his dry suit / head covering. My mate advised him of 4oz leads crashing on his head but he wasn’t bothered !!!
 
Perhaps not the best thing but arrived at a disappointingly low river Severn a couple of seasons ago and after choosing a swim and fishing for 1/2 hour i spotted something in the margins which looked like a bomb!
I rang the local bailiff who turned up, agreed it was a bomb & rang the bomb squad. Within about an hour the local area was evacuated and teeming with police & army. Me & my mate tucked ourselves in a swim about 100 yards away and carried on fishing as we weren’t going to waste an hours journey!
The bomb was taken into the field behind us and blown up after it was carefully removed.
Apparently, it’s quite common in the Shrewsbury area to come across them as the town was peppered with them during the war. A large amount landed in the mud of the river and rolled around in the current for the next 80 years!
 

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For me personally its wildlife encounters over the years:

The Mole

In my youth I was fishing a lake, where I was sitting on a high concrete wall, which dropped down to the waters edge. Something caught my eye as it swam/scurried along the lakebed, exiting the water right below my feet. It was a mole which had clearly gone the wrong way whilst tunnelling. I scooped it up in my landing net and released in the field behind. Within seconds it had tunnelled back underground 😊

Stag in the mist

I made my way down to a swim at dawn on the River Wye and first I just sat there taking it all in, with the sunrise and mist rolling across the river. I heard a splash upstream and looked up to see a red deer stag swimming across the river and no more than 50 meters upstream! If only I had a camera that day, as the whole atmosphere/backdrop was phenomenal!

The cheeky Stoat

Fishing the River Vyrnwy in Wales for Barbel, a tributary of the Upper Severn and small river. Opposite a stoat appeared, working the far bank and once upstream of me, it decided to swim across the river to my bank. As it did so, the current pushed it downstream and it existed the river, just several feet away from me. It then stood up on its back legs with a cheek meerkat type pose, having a good look at me , before scurrying off into the undergrowth. Can’t remember if I caught anything that day and as someone once famously said, there’s more to fishing than catching fish 😊

The Kingfish encounter to end all others!

Around 25 years ago I used to fish a swim on the Severn below Shrewsbury for Barbel on the pole. It was effectively a big slack/back eddy where a stream came into the main river. This was pre pellet mania and I’d ball it into the slack with a groundbait mix of Van Den Eynde River Ace, laced with plenty of hemp and caster. I was sitting there on my seatbox/platform and throughout the session I’d inevitably spilt groundbait in the shallow water by my feet. In turn this was now swarming with minnows, when suddenly a kingfisher appeared in the tree immediately to my left and looking down on me. Bit odd this I thought, as they are normally off in a flash of blue, on seeing you. To my amazement, it dived right by my feet in an attempt to catch a minnow over the spilt groundbait. It did this 3 times, before eventually catching a minnow and returning to its perch. Minnow banged on head and swallowed, before the kingfisher shot off downstream. I know anglers occasionally get kingfishers landing on their rods, but this was just total nuts and as a personal wildlife encounter, I can’t see it ever being beaten for me 😍
 
I've had lots of encounters with wild animals whilst fishing . . .not sure about best but weirdest was whilst trotting on my favourite free stretch of the Colne 20+ yrs ago. The swim was a deep hole on the inside of a bend but you had to wade out to fish it properly - opposite bank had a dog pound and there were lowish cables that spanned across the river (I'd always assumed they were inert) connecting to a building on the opposite side.

The day was going well playing hit and hold with large chub and the occasional small barbel when a pack of Swans flew over fairly low directly above . . .seconds later one of the assumed stragglers following at pace but presumably not paying attention crashed into the cables above and got tangled up - there was an almighty 'crack' as the poor swan got zapped (it was like watching a cartoon electrocution) and dropped 30ft from above into the river about a foot from the end of my rod with a massive splash. . .I fell backwards in shock (I was about 3metres from an inaccessible bank where the rest of my gear was wedged in the vegetation overhead) and my chesties started to fill as I struggled to get back on my feet in the flow.

My last visual memory was watching a large swan float down the river upside down with its legs waggling and the rest of its body 'sizzling and hissing' in the cold water . . .it was a genuinely disturbing near miss!
 
I can see a BFW book developing here.!

Yes, I have a wonderful video of a kingfisher on my rod, then it's dive down to fish and its return to my rod. Its a shame it can't be loaded on here.

Also a day on the Kennet tucked amongst trees. When the full erotic Karma Sutra book was performed in the opposite field.
Of course I averted my eyes....and a loud loud cough made them decide to move. I'm guessing they didn't know I was there. Maybe not.

Then, similar to an earlier post, when an Otter plus two youngsters came out of the water alongside me. All stood up not six feet away as if to say..."Want bovver" for a full 15 second before squeaking away.
 
A couple of things come to mind. In May 2024 we were staying in Helford Village , I went out one morning hoping to maybe catch a couple of Bream in the Helford River . Suddenly this surfaced in front of me, I did not know that deer could swim underwater but somehow this one did.

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It had crossed the river when it was on the ebb so the current was taking it out to sea, I managed to take a quick snap on my phone .
Somehow it managed to fight the current and came ashore only a matter of yards from where I was fishing. It seemed quite calm, but when it looked around and saw me it set off and managed to scale quite a steep rockface behind me , so not only could it dive, it could climb mountains as well !

A second incident happened in Greece, once again I was fishing, well, actually just setting up my gear when two young attractive girls , maybe in their early 20’s walked along the beach behind me, said a few words to me that I could not understand, and then proceeded to fully strip off , then lay on their beach towels watching me fish. I caught a couple of small “Boga’ and returned them, but the girls then both came up to me , still starkers and asked in English if I could catch them a few fish for their supper.
How could I refuse ?

No photo that time.
Dave
 
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Regarding your mole story Neil, you mention it
Neil Blood said:
For me personally its wildlife encounters over the years:

The Mole

In my youth I was fishing a lake, where I was sitting on a high concrete wall, which dropped down to the waters edge. Something caught my eye as it swam/scurried along the lakebed, exiting the water right below my feet. It was a mole which had clearly gone the wrong way whilst tunnelling. I scooped it up in my landing net and released in the field behind. Within seconds it had tunnelled back underground 😊

Stag in the mist

I made my way down to a swim at dawn on the River Wye and first I just sat there taking it all in, with the sunrise and mist rolling across the river. I heard a splash upstream and looked up to see a red deer stag swimming across the river and no more than 50 meters upstream! If only I had a camera that day, as the whole atmosphere/backdrop was phenomenal!

The cheeky Stoat

Fishing the River Vyrnwy in Wales for Barbel, a tributary of the Upper Severn and small river. Opposite a stoat appeared, working the far bank and once upstream of me, it decided to swim across the river to my bank. As it did so, the current pushed it downstream and it existed the river, just several feet away from me. It then stood up on its back legs with a cheek meerkat type pose, having a good look at me , before scurrying off into the undergrowth. Can’t remember if I caught anything that day and as someone once famously said, there’s more to fishing than catching fish 😊

The Kingfish encounter to end all others!

Around 25 years ago I used to fish a swim on the Severn below Shrewsbury for Barbel on the pole. It was effectively a big slack/back eddy where a stream came into the main river. This was pre pellet mania and I’d ball it into the slack with a groundbait mix of Van Den Eynde River Ace, laced with plenty of hemp and caster. I was sitting there on my seatbox/platform and throughout the session I’d inevitably spilt groundbait in the shallow water by my feet. In turn this was now swarming with minnows, when suddenly a kingfisher appeared in the tree immediately to my left and looking down on me. Bit odd this I thought, as they are normally off in a flash of blue, on seeing you. To my amazement, it dived right by my feet in an attempt to catch a minnow over the spilt groundbait. It did this 3 times, before eventually catching a minnow and returning to its perch. Minnow banged on head and swallowed, before the kingfisher shot off downstream. I know anglers occasionally get kingfishers landing on their rods, but this was just total nuts and as a personal wildlife encounter, I can’t see it ever being beaten for me 😍
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Regarding your mole story Neil, you mention it, "swam/scurried along the lake bed".

I have a stream that runs through my back garden. Not very deep and on the day in question probably running at about 10" deep. Something caught my eye and as I glanced down, to see a mole walk across the stream bed from one side to the other. Not swim but literally walking across the gravel underwater. I didn't think anybody would believe me if I said this.

My fishing related special moment would be a day pike fishing on the Somerley Estate on the Hampshire Avon. It was late afternoon when a bittern came out of a reed bed. Strangely, I have fished the Norfolk Broads on a number of occasions and never so much as heard one never mind seen one.
 
Steve Roffey said:
Apart from the kingfisher perching on my rod the other week it has to be heading to a favourite Mahseer swim on the Kaveri and finding an elephant bathing in it!
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I was struggling to think of anything but your story triggered an old memory of barramundi fishing in the Northern Territory and seeing quite a few salt water crocs. One might think how I could forget about that but it was nearly 25 years ago and I don't think about the past much.
 
Steve Quinn said:
I was struggling to think of anything but your story triggered an old memory of barramundi fishing in the Northern Territory and seeing quite a few salt water crocs. One might think how I could forget about that but it was nearly 25 years ago and I don't think about the past much.
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That would have been a fleeting sight for me. Biggest threat I have seen was a mink!
 
Continuing with the moles I was fishing at arley once when I suddenly felt something by feet. Looked down and the earth was moving and 2 moles came out and had a fight in between my feet before retreating back underground.
Maddest thing I’ve seen was whilst fishing at bewdley there was a pigeon in the tree above me. It had been there a while when it started to make a choking type noise. After 20 seconds or so it dropped out the tree landing in the stinging nettles right next to me where it flapped about for a few seconds and died
 
Walking off the Avon one night I almost stepped on a sleeping deer, it jumped up half a pace in front of me, not sure who was more scared. Maybe not the best thing I’ve seen but certainly memorable!
 
Mark Walker said:
Walking off the Avon one night I almost stepped on a sleeping deer, it jumped up half a pace in front of me, not sure who was more scared. Maybe not the best thing I’ve seen but certainly memorable!
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I remember my mate telling me he was walking across a field at night (pitch black) and a pheasant flew from under his feet and he ended up in a heap on the floor half scared to death.

He had his rucksack on his back and fell backwards - he said he was like an upside down tortoise that couldn't right himself. He was wriggling on the floor trying to get his bag off his back and back on his feet 🤣🤣🤣
 
Nigel Whittingham said:
Perhaps not the best thing but arrived at a disappointingly low river Severn a couple of seasons ago and after choosing a swim and fishing for 1/2 hour i spotted something in the margins which looked like a bomb!
I rang the local bailiff who turned up, agreed it was a bomb & rang the bomb squad. Within about an hour the local area was evacuated and teeming with police & army. Me & my mate tucked ourselves in a swim about 100 yards away and carried on fishing as we weren’t going to waste an hours journey!
The bomb was taken into the field behind us and blown up after it was carefully removed.
Apparently, it’s quite common in the Shrewsbury area to come across them as the town was peppered with them during the war. A large amount landed in the mud of the river and rolled around in the current for the next 80 years!
Click to expand...
I think we have a winner !!!
 
Cotheridge wildlife……..
It was a lovely summers day on the River Teme when looking over my shoulder I was startled by the sight of young ( ish ) man striding along the bank in only his underpants!. Without so much as a ‘ how do you do’ he sat next to me and staring across the river echoed those immortal words ‘ caught anything mister’?
( It was my mate Keith, who has just tumbled into the river and decided to dry his ‘ outerwear’ in the backside tree’s), happy days…..).
G.T.
 
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