Crazy Friggin Loon!

[CdnVet0506]

Took son camping/fishing at Carson for couple of days. Fishing was fair to good (nothing over 12inches), but one of the lake's loons has an interesting fishing technique!! He has no fear of man (comes within feet of the canoe, and dives and swims around it). 1st experience with him, was bringing in a 10 incher (saw him before he sounded next to canoe), next thing I know, my flyreel is screaming!! Loon surfaces 30 feet from canoe with trout in beak. Gave a quick tug, trout slips out of his beak and I crank it in. Release it on far side of canoe as loon gives me "dirty looks". Later that day, I release another trout and the loon suddenly surfaces and he's got the recently releashed trout, goodbye trout. I watch him repeat performance with other fisherman all day...
Next day, he's hanging around my canoe again so I give up on fishing and watch loon. A couple of times he thinks my paddle is a fish flopping on surface and he comes in and bites it...
Talked to the CO later that day, guess the loon is a bit of a fixture on the lake now. His fishing technique may feed him at Carson, but won't help him much on the coast over the winter:)

Like I said, crazy friggin loon

[Geezle]

It's aways entertaining to see stuff like that going on :lol:

Thanks for sharing the story :)

[jts1]

Same frickin thing was going on for me. This loon would swim along side of me as I worked the shoreline with my fly rod. As soon as I would get a Trout on. he would dive down and grab the fish. After this went on twice as you can guess I was a little ****ed. But no amount of yelling or flapping of the arms would chase the little bugger off. Guess that bird gets around...

[White Devil]

I had a similar experience this past weekend in Clearwater BC on a logging road beaver pond and a curious mink. Stood 2 feet behind me for close to an hour. Beautiful animal, and a wicked fisher.

[duffy4]

Just the other day I got an e-mail from a friend who was out on a stocked lake near Rocky in his pontoon. Had similar experience with a loony loon. He finally gave up fishing for the day.

[danewfy]

lol. cant believe thats still happening. hadnt been there for a few yrs but they used to take them from us on the pier as well. same loons or are they passing this new technique on to their next generation? been around lots of crazy loons (feathered and nonfeathered) but have only had them steal trout off my line at carson. would like to hear about similar experiences.

[floppychicken]

Perhaps it's something 'generational now'....

About 3 years ago my buddy and I had a bizzarre experience with a 'BABY' loon out at PCR. Damn thing couldn't have been more than 4 inches long and kept peepin' at us and 'just' staying out of arm's length from the boat. Stayed with us for 3 hours and wouldn't leave but would nibble at the occassional minnow (I don't think he/she ever ate one..) and when I took off a bit down the lake, this thing 'ran on top of the water' after us! Weirdest and funniest thing all at the same time.... Anyway, it caught up to us and stayed at that next spot for another hour and then we sped away as it was getting dark. He tried to keep up for awhile but we eventually lost sight of him....

Open water like that is not a 'safe place' for such a small bird and my feeling is that he probably got eaten by one of those big pike... Unless of course, he was reunited with his family...