Anyone ever have this happen?

Yesterday I was out on a local lake and had gotten in to some pretty healthy crappies and gills. The first fish I set in the snow was a fat 12″ crappie, a very good start to the day. As I continued to hole-hop, I got farther and farther away from that crappie (I didnt bring a bucket.. stupid, I know). All of a sudden, I heard a weird noise behind me and as I turned around an eagle came and sniped my crappie!! I was both bummed and amazed that it even saw that crappie laying there (we were in the middle of a large bay, the nearest shoreline was probably 150 yards or more away). So, we decided to have some fun with this eagle and ended up feeding it 5 more gills throughout our trip! We’d set it on the snow about 20 yards from where we were fishing and after a few minutes it would swoop low from a tree and snatch the gill right up.

It was pretty cool to be able to interact like that with such an amazing animal. If my hands werent numb I could have attempted to take pics/vids… haha! Anyone ever have this happen to them?

Didn’t happen with a fish, But I had wounded a Mallard once and before I could get the boat out of the weeds and motor started, An Eagle swooped down and took him away. Was mad at 1st., then thought……Hey.They need to eat too. Good thing I was using Steel shot!

I’ve seen it before on the Mississippi winter walleye fishing–those guys who jig up sauger out of really deep water don’t always deflate them like they should. Also had a duck down this fall, and it was a race between the eagle and my dog…luckily, my dog had the head start and won!
I read once that(if eagles could read) an eagle’s eyes are so sharp it could make out newspaper print at 100 ft–the image isn’t magnified, their eyesight is just that sharp. Pretty amazing birds…

Text Book Reading….

Eagles, like all birds, have color vision. An eagle’s eye is almost as large as a human’s, but its sharpness is at least four times that of a person with perfect vision. The eagle can probably identify a rabbit moving almost a mile away. That means that an eagle flying at an altitude of 1000 feet over open country could spot prey over an area of almost 3 square miles from a fixed position.

They are cool aren’t they?

Well…almost! My thief was a seagull, not an eagle. I would have been thrilled to share my bluegills with an eagle. A seagull, though…not so much.

A few over on the hunting side for those who like Eagles.

Eagles

I’ve seen the same thing with pike. An eagle was circling so we threw it a hammer handle. It swooped in and got a free lunch. Another time(this is no b.s. ) we found a dead skunk on the ice, and with eagles circling overhead, threw a catfish in the same area. You guessed it, the eagle flew down and took the skunk. They must be smarter than we think.

Eagle in this pic was sitting on a nest above us. I let a crappie go, and you could hear the rush of air as it dove out of the nest to snatch up the crappie. So, I had the camera ready the next time we caught a rock bass. Was well worth counting those fish in our daily limit to have this one 20 yards from the boat.

Lake Mendota, I’ve had those god forsaken seagulls steal plenty of perch.

Lake Monona, I had SOMEBODY steal 21 perch out of my sled. I was hole hopping chasing a school of nice perch. Noticed someone walking away from the vacinity of my trap, so I hiked over. They disappeared in the crowd as I discovered all my fish were gone.

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Text Book Reading….

Eagles, like all birds, have color vision. An eagle’s eye is almost as large as a human’s, but its sharpness is at least four times that of a person with perfect vision. The eagle can probably identify a rabbit moving almost a mile away. That means that an eagle flying at an altitude of 1000 feet over open country could spot prey over an area of almost 3 square miles from a fixed position.

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This was a study that I read that has about the same premise as your newspaper fact. A university, I can’t remember which one, ran a test on 50 people with 20/20 vision. The test was looking at a screen with alternating vertical black and white lines. Each screen had progressivly smaller lines untill the image became a solid picture in the person’s eyes. They then took the median resolution and used that as their base.

When they tested the eagles they used two screens. One was completely blank and the other had the vertical lines on it. They then trained 5 eagles to fly to a perch in front of the screen that showed the lines. As in the human study the lines progressivly got smaller and closer together. When the eagle no longer would fly to a perch they knew that both of the screens looked the same to to the eagle.

The conclusion was that an eagle has 4 times sharper vision than a human. I cant imagine what it would be like to have vision that accute. We think HD lookes cool, what would being able to see 4 times more detail in the world look like? Think about it. Cool story though.

cool! so an eagle can see BK’s panty lines from a mile away?

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cool! so an eagle can see BK’s panty lines from a mile away?

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You weren’t on Chisago were you? When my Kids were yound we used to feed the eagle that lived on the lake. We would toss a small one outside the Clam and you could watch ans hear the big guy coming in. In most cases he would just sit there about 15 feel from the front of the portable and have a snack. It was the coolest thing ever and my kids will never forget it.

John