Last October I was on a float trip fishing the South Fork of the Snake River with my favorite guide Bart Taylor and my cousin.  We were fishing streamers all day and meeting with pretty good success.  Around lunch time, my cousin hooked up with a nice 16-17 inch rainbow trout.  Bart dropped anchor while we landed the fish and snapped a couple photos.  As we released the fish, it slipped from our hands prematurely and started to float on it side down stream. Bart immediately started to pull up anchor so we could retrieve it.  It was seconds after the fish hit the water and a mere 6-8 feet away from the boat, that an eagle swooped down and grabbed the fish from the surface and lighted on another tree to eat his prize catch.

Needless to say, this took us all by surprise.  I just missed accidentally capturing the moment on camera as I took a photo of the fish right as it was dropped (picture to the left).  Bart says he didn’t see what had happened, but knew something strange was happening because he could feel the gust of wind as the eagle pulled back just before hitting the fish.  He looked up just after the fish was taken.  We all looked at each other to make sure we hadn’t just hallucinated the whole thing after hours of slinging lead.  We looked up to see another eagle sitting in a bare cottonwood tree, presumably waiting for us to drop him another snack.  I think the first bird must have left his perch the moment that fish hit the water, if not a moment before.  It was a truly amazing encounter that I am grateful have witnessed.