2 Special Summer Sightings...11 Point

[snap]

.....With the river running wild, I thought this would be a good time to share a couple of unique, as in it does not happen often, experiences I had in the Summer of 09 on the river. On an early June trip late in the day we were gently motoring from Horseshoe Bend to Whiten. It had earlier rained on us pretty good and the fog was now rising from the water and navigating the river was a bit tricky. We noticed a bald eagle flying over the river a ways downstream. It landed on a limb that was hanging over the river about 40 feet above the water. We kept waiting for it to fly off as we got closer to it, but it did not move. It stayed right where it was as we slowly went under it. No camera on board...but what a sight it was!!!

On another trip late in July, I took my extended family, approximately 20 of us, on a float. Most were in kayaks, but a cople were in canoes. My mother-in-law and wife were in the boat with me. One canoe was struggling badly from the onset. I think the reason for that was that the heavier person was in the front, but I did not know how to tactfully tell them...so, I didn't!!! At the island below Tumbling Shoals in the area we call "The Sticks", this canoe tipped and lost some precious cargo...a bag of cosmetic crap!!! Why was she carrying it????....don't even ask!!! Anyway, my brother-in-law and oldest son took it upon themselves, cause I sure wasn't, to wade the opposite side of the river from the gravel bar where the bag had lodged itself amongst the fallen trees, or, sticks. My son used the trees by grabbing them to move himself against the current after retrieving the bag. Because of this, the sticks were bouncing up and down pretty good while he made his way to the waiting hand of my brother-in-law to pull him out of the thicket. They made their way across the river to the gravel bar where a number of us were waiting. As we were preparing to move on, one in our group flew out of his kayak. A Timber Rattlesnake had swam across the river and right past his kayak. The rattler made its way onto the gravel bar and stopped. We hovered around it as my brother-in-law tried to snap a picture from too far away. The snake was 4-5 feet long and described by my son as being as thick as a Coors Light can...and it was!!! It might not have been as majestic as the eagle, but there was something about it that awwwwwed us!!!

[steve l]

Hey Snap, I can supplement your eagle just a bit. On my annual trip w/my brothers my niece & I came across an eagle just past Horseshoe Bend - you'd think it has to be the same one. It flew past us and landed in a dead tree. What we thought was it began to raise a ruckus, but as we got closer we could see it has perched with a juvenile. It was the juvenile making all the noise. The adult ended up flying away, leaving the juvenile squawking away. Pretty cool, picture attached (hopefully).

No rattlesnake. Would like to see one - over there though.

[snap]

...looks like the same eagle...good for you getting a good pic!!! One of the best parts about this river, IMO, is that you never know what you are going to see. Besides the two sightings I listed, I once saw a doe swimming across the river. That was cool also!!!....and I hear you on the rattler!!!

[eric1978]

On a float on Jack's Fork, we were going through a bit of a tricky stretch of shoals and bends with lots of obstructions. We approached a particularly nasty bit when I reached up to push a pile of branches over my head when my buddy in the back of the canoe yelled SNAAAAAKE! It was like in Stand By Me when Gordy yelled TRAAAAAIN! Anyway, for some reason I instinctively retracted my arm, even though I had no idea where it was. I looked up and it was coiled around the very branch I was reaching for and was in that defensive "strike" position and ready to murder my hand. My other buddy in a kayak behind us is a biologist, and when he took a look at it he told me he was positive it was a cottonmouth. That would have made for a really crappy day....we were miles from any real civilization. Disaster averted. About ten minutes later, I hooked the biggest smallmouth of the trip, a definite 20 incher, and he broke me off after I got a really good look at him, so nature got me back in the end.

[brownieman]

JMO but birds like that are most likely from populated areas or used to seeing people.

At a place I worked at years ago we had a kinda resident Osprey...it was really neat watching that bird hit the water and snatch fish right in front of us, then he would just sit on a limb and take his sweet time eating his catch.

We didn't think much about it but I reckon that was pretty unusual.

One more cool experiece I had on the river one time...was fishing and looked upstream and saw something swimming in the river. As it got closer I could see it was a big buck, could hear dogs upstream barking so I guess he was gettin rid of those dogs.

I slowly backed up by a rootwad, froze and just waited. The river was narrow and pretty deep where I was standing and when the deer got right beside me he turned his head away for a second and I reached out with my rod tip, touched him on top of the head and said howdy.

He turned away from me and headed for the bank on the other side and like to broke his neck gettin outta there. He was a big 10 pointer...don't know if he was happier gettin away from me or the dogs...probably both, lol.

I would say that incedent is pretty rare...I've seen more deer in the river swimming but touching a big buck like that I'd say is a once in a lifetime experience...not common to say the least.

later on

[Tito Degiosio]

to add to the collection

just a small buck swimming on the other side of the river from me fishing he came from the spring branch down below the first shoal before getting out of the water

[brownieman]

Good pic tito,

Wish we would have had the tech. back then...but for my old butt that would have been about it's only use for me, lol.

Nice to have a camera on ya for a lucky shot here or there.

later on

[MaxDrown]

I saw what I thought was a bald eagle flying around when I did a float with Brian in Sept.