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Beaver Lake Report
King County, WA

Details

05/13/2012
Rainbow Trout
Afternoon
05/13/2012
5
1034

My afternoon of relaxed dock fishing at Beaver Lake ended up provided a memory of a lifetime. I was fishing off the bottom using power eggs when I got a very good bite and tug on the pole. A nice fish on had me standing up as it jumped out of the water, at which point it got a little more interesting. Suddenly I felt something over my shoulder and looked up to see a huge bald eagle swooping down from behind. Unbelievably it grabbed my fish from less than 20ft away and took off across the lake. The line zinged off the reel like crazy - the eagle had my fish and my hook had the fish too... As the eagle reached mid lake, the line continuing to peel off, and not knowing what else to do I finally broke it. The eagle continued to fly off, apparently happy to have scavenged a nice fish. The line must have broken near the hook as I was able to reel in a huge amount of line - good news that it wouldn't tangle up the eagle. After, I stood there amazed at what had just happened.

I know the eagles and osprey are super active at beaver lake. Has anyone had this happen to them?..

Rating this 5 stars for the memory...

p.s. No bald eagle was harmed during this true story (with witnesses). The next time I have a fish on I might be looking over my shoulder!



Comments

tele_maniac
5/13/2012 10:59:00 PM
What a crazy cool story! I fish at Beaver pretty regularly. Never had an eagle snatch one of my fish, but I've had them land in a tree near me and act like they wanted me to share my fish with them.
MotoBoat
5/14/2012 10:24:00 AM
That is a cool, likely once in a lifetime occurrence. I suppose the eagle would eat the flesh and therefore have little chance of ingesting a hook?
fishtremble
5/14/2012 10:56:00 AM
I've had a sort of simular experience. I had a river otter steal my fish as I was reeling it in. I guess you have to look out from below too. This was at Riffe Lake.
BentRod
5/14/2012 12:32:00 PM
No raptors yet, but caught a bat while fly fishing at dusk once and snagged a mallard that swam over my bobber when I was a kid. Both were released shaken up, but unharmed. Yup, doesn't happen to often.
Roadkill
7/29/2012 2:35:00 PM
I've had Osprey steal fish from twice while trolling, once at Beaver and once at Rattlesnake.
Both times the fish came up to the surface, behind the boat about 30 yards.
It does happen from time to time, I've seen others lose fish to the Osprey and Eagles.
Most of the time it's the Ospeys.
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Available Guide

Available Fishing Guide:
Website: Darrell & Dads Family Guide Service

Phone: (509) 687-0709