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The best thing you’ve seen whilst fishing

Here’s my paltry efforts
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I love Kingfishers. They are perhaps my favourite animal I see. My local Thames the Kingfishers are everywhere, at the moment they are really doing well. If I see one and I blank I don't mind.
 
Gavin Burt said:
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 !!!
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The nearest I got too a deer was 4 years ago returning home from a session on the Trent. The picture will speak for itself
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i was doing a weekend session on the middle severn finished fishing for the evening and put my float rod against my bivvy in the straps and went for a chat with my fishing buddies. After a few minutes of chatting we heard a crashing noise where my bivvy was pitched in the woods, an owl had managed to get itself tangled good and proper in my float rod. It had massive claws and a big sharp beak and i thought im getting ripped to shreds here so rapped it in a towel . After a few careful minutes snipping away with scissors we managed to free it , it never struggled once the whole time so took the towel of to release it and it just sat there in the palm of my hand preening itself and giving a good shake. A short while it flew off it was almost a full moon and it done a circle of the field and landed on a fence post not to far away and sat there looking at us for ages as if to say thanks.
 
There has been a lot of talk (and great photos) of Kingfishers. My story is of a PAIR that perched just in front of me on two carp rods resting on alarms many years ago. The Kingfishers were about 6 inches apart and looked at each other with their beaks nearly touching before flying off. No photo except one I have in my memory and retrieve to look at now and again.
 
This isn’t one from me but in August my fishing mate was doing an overnighter at MF it was a full moon so not super dark.

He was fishing about 1am (Oak tree peg) and saw something on the opposite bank moving above the river bank which caught his eye.

The guy from the next few pegs wandered down as he’d seen something too. The both watched a large black cat casually walking across the edge of the field which then disappeared out of sight.

I’ve seen big prints before but never anything in the flesh.
 
My mistake 🙄 Just tried loading a video unsuccessfully from my FB feed ,.. probably need to alter my fb consents.🤔
Ps,.. probably me being daft but couldn’t find a delete post icon.
 
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Apols for the image quality but this was close enough . . . Wolf Hybrid (Alsatian cross) that 'roams' the land on my river syndy. It usually scopes your presence from distance and leaves you alone (its presumably well fed lol) - on this occasion I was setting up and simply turned around to get something and it had appeared from nowhere to stare me out! Must have stalked me in silence . . . .thankfully the Alsatian in it meant I lived to tell the tale lol . . . its a massive beast of a canine and at least 2x the size of an adult Alsatian!
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Chris Belcher said:
Apols for the image quality but this was close enough . . . Wolf Hybrid (Alsatian cross) that 'roams' the land on my river syndy. It usually scopes your presence from distance and leaves you alone (its presumably well fed lol) - on this occasion I was setting up and simply turned around to get something and it had appeared from nowhere to stare me out! Must have stalked me in silence . . . .thankfully the Alsatian in it meant I lived to tell the tale lol . . . its a massive beast of a canine and at least 2x the size of an adult Alsatian!View attachment 36915
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I want one!
 
Perhaps not the most amazing sight but certainly an event I won’t forget in a long time.
Last year fishing for barbel in September on the Wye. We were fishing on a wide gravelly beach and typically had our rods pointed skywards to keep the line off the water.
A picture perfect pair of swans came paddling up stream - nervous as it was under our lines - but they have good eyesight I guess and avoided them.
Forgot about the swans and then 10 mins later from up river the two were heading back towards us wings fully outstretched and flapping for take off.
Before we knew it they were about head height coming through our swim and then off goes my reel playing out metres of line as one of the swans wings picked up my aerial line. I think they must have been flying towards the sun.
It must have taken 50metres of line before stopping, rather confused.
His mate was airborne now and circled and came back.
What to do.
Miraculously the swan untangled itself / wing and the two met up to make a second takeoff attempt.
 
First thought seeing the thread title, had just the same thing happen once pike fishing with my dad, a massive splash to our right and a stag swimming across the river, did the same thing, turned and looked at us and bolted across the fields behind us.
 
Graeme Ramm said:
Perhaps not the most amazing sight but certainly an event I won’t forget in a long time.
Last year fishing for barbel in September on the Wye. We were fishing on a wide gravelly beach and typically had our rods pointed skywards to keep the line off the water.
A picture perfect pair of swans came paddling up stream - nervous as it was under our lines - but they have good eyesight I guess and avoided them.
Forgot about the swans and then 10 mins later from up river the two were heading back towards us wings fully outstretched and flapping for take off.
Before we knew it they were about head height coming through our swim and then off goes my reel playing out metres of line as one of the swans wings picked up my aerial line. I think they must have been flying towards the sun.
It must have taken 50metres of line before stopping, rather confused.
His mate was airborne now and circled and came back.
What to do.
Miraculously the swan untangled itself / wing and the two met up to make a second takeoff attempt.
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Did you have the bait runner on? I’ve had ducks fly into my line twice. First time I didn’t have the runner on and I honestly thought my rod had snapped the noise it made as it slammed over. Second time I had the runner on luckily as the duck was absolutely bombing past. The rod still slammed over and the line screamed off the reel but the rod never made a horrendous cracking sound like the first time
 
Was fishing on the Lower Teme just above the weir at Powick on a Summer evening. on the opposite side two young ladies walked up and were sort of playmaking around, then they started kissing! it was a bit of a dilemma-they obviously hadn't seen me, and I was keeping as still as a statue willing for no Barbel wrap round bite for once.............just as things started on their side to get a little more hectic a Barbel latched on, I struck-and the two each gave a small shriek and ran off giggling. It was good fishing those days on the Teme and the Barbel fishing was quite good as well.
 
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