I was trolling on Minong Flowage for Wisconsin fishing opener. I tied on a brand new number 11 black and silver rapala and got a hit right away from a small walleye about 13 inches long,I started reading it in, and as I was still moving it was being dragged on the top of the water, at about 15 feet from the boat A bald eagle swoop down and grab my fish with the rapala and line still attached. I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t wanna pull hard and risk setting the Rapala hook in his talons so I just applied steady pressure, he decided to pull back hard while flying away and the line broke. Away with my fish with the Rapala, Why my buddy and I as well as the two guys in the boat next-door just stared dumbfounded.

Similar thing happened to me and a buddy up in Canada. For us it was trolling for smallies and catching a seagull who swooped in after it. He had both on his line at the same time. Fish trying to swim down, seagull trying to fly up. Memorable experience for sure.

When duck hunting, we get eagles stealing our ducks all the time. We feel pretty ridiculous when we need to race the eagle to our duck and are hollering at it to try to scare it off.

The seagull thing happened to my brother, as well as two friends so I think it’s not uncommon. I read a story once, in some outdoor mag about a guy fishing for bass at night. He tossed his lure out and it never hit the water ... but his line was going off into the distance...turns out an owl grabbed his lure in mid air. Can’t recall the rest of the story but all kinds of crazy things happen when fishing lol.

Moonman.

A1t2o: "When duck hunting, we get eagles stealing our ducks all the time. We feel pretty ridiculous when we need to race the eagle to our duck and are hollering at it to try to scare it off."

Us, too. We had one pick a decoy 3’ off the water before dropping it once.

I was fishing in 18 feet of water last year with live minnows and got a hit. Set the hook and a second later a loon came busting out of the water with my minnow. Scared the crap out of me. I opened the bail and luckily he got off.

I hooked a beaver on his tail on Koma about 8 years ago. I also didn't know what to do. I tried to horse it in a bit closer so that I could minimize the line it would be dragging around, but for the life of me I could not bring him in at all. So I ended up cutting my line...

FishermanTed: "I was fishing in 18 feet of water last year with live minnows and got a hit. Set the hook and a second later a loon came busting out of the water with my minnow. Scared the crap out of me. I opened the bail and luckily he got off. "

Ted I worry about that very thing with loons quite a bit when using minnows as I have heard that before. But I’m almost always using flies or lures and loons are too smart to grab those. Hope the Lodge is doing well...maybe someday I can convince the wife that’s it’s a needed family holiday lol.

Moonman.

During October, 75-100 loons were rafting together near us on Ottertail before heading south. A group surrounded us, diving after our minnows before we could reel in. Sure enough, my buddy's line was around one's neck. Tried to unwind and cut what we could but it thrashed and broke the line and dove off. Can't imagine it was a happy ending.

That is a crazy story! I hope the eagle does not get hurt - at that point, it's totally out of your control. I've definitely had dozens of birds and bats try to snatch my fly or Mepps as I'm casting. None have ever been successful. But I have never had anything try to steal my fish as I was reeling it in. We've had big, alpha loons try to swim under our canoe and get our stringer of fish, though.

Amazing stories, and lots and lots of reasons encouraging me to remove all the barbs from my hooks before heading up to any of the wilderness areas again. If I loose a few fish, so be it. I don't need many to be happy.

The Eagle probably just wanted that Expensive Rapala to add to his collection !

I was about 10 fishing with my dad, can't remember where.

My dad hooked a pike, my job was to net. I grabbed the net, left my jitterbug floating about 40 feet from out boat.

While netting my dad's fish, a seagull dove on the jitterbug, got a treble hook in the rear and wound the line all around itself.

Five minutes of chaos followed, but eventually I reeled the bird in close, my dad grabbed it by the neck and held it's head underwater. For some reason, that made the bird "freeze", and we unhooked and untangled it.

Dad's gone, but this is one of my many great memories with him.

Many years ago, when I actually was young, I was fishing from the beach in Naples (FL) on a windy day when I cast a lure that got held up in the wind, and sure enough a seagull flew right into it and got tangled in the line. I reeled in and as I recall didn’t have much problem getting it off the line. Later, on the same beach, I hooked a sea slug. That was a strange animal, with violet blood. I didn’t keep that catch either.