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Posts: 4266
| While chatting with a stranger on the dock last week, he gave me lots of opinions and fishing reports. He is lucky to stay at his place up here all summer long before he heads down to warmer climes. One story that he told me I have to repeat.
It seems that while he was bass fishing in previous weeks, he was lucky enough to hook a couple of muskies on minnow lures and landed them both. One was 44" and one was 47". Both fish were landed and released without much incident. He told me that the 47" had a bunch of scrapes and marks on it all over it's back, but that the 44" was beautiful and didn't have a mark on it because the loons haven't attacked it yet. Seems the 47"er was the victim of numerous loon attacks, and that's what the marks were from. The 44"er has been luck so far and has avoided and "dive-bys" by the local loon population.
I thought maybe I should mention the rigors of spawning, but decided not to. I told him that if he thought the loon attacks were bad, that he should see the scars produced by heron ambushes.
That's why you never catch muskies when loons are around. We just thought that they were diving for a meal, it turns out that they are out to attack the biggest fish in the sea. |
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| Loons attacking muskies. Wow! First time I heard of that. 
Edited by Musky Madman 6/30/2009 8:02 AM
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Posts: 727
| Time to get a diver that looks like a loon.  |
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Location: Oswego, IL | Priceless! |
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Location: Milwaukee | I have heard similar stories from a guide up on the Chip. He said that loons will "attack" muskies by ramming them with their beaks, and intimidate them. Just like dolphins are one of the only animals that will scare off sharks, by ramming them with their noses.
Might be just a story, but who knows????? |
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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | Last year we were fishing a small bay(real small) and we had 3 nice muskies blow up and miss lures.... couldn't get them to come back after other lures, so we left the area and came back about an hr. later
When we get back to the bay, there are 2 loons chasing these muskies away....... All three of us in the boat saw each fish swim by our boat with the loons chasing them under water.
Oh, and the loons were making all kind of noise, right before they went under water...........It was a strange site, for sure..... And then the next day Jake put about a 15lb. Herin in the boat,............With a Weagle !!! Ya, Thats right,....... He Caught it in mid air.....My stomach hurt for hrs.
It was a really FUN trip.
Jerome |
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Posts: 409
Location: Almond, WI | Too funny. So I guess that 42" I caught two weeks ago next to a feeding loon was a fluke... |
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Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | Probably not far from the truth. One of the biggest predators for fish are birds, muskies don't get a free pass since they have teeth. Male loons will kill each other by spearing with their beaks, generally when fighting for a female. |
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Posts: 4266
| I guess it is not as far fetched as I thought.
I thought maybe nesting birds would chase fish away, but I never thought they would attack muskies
with any success.
Beav |
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Posts: 3867
| FishOn and I camped on a remote UP island and loons were nesting on another nearby island. If we drifted too close, one or the other (or both?) loons would swim underwater and kinda dart at the boat and turn away about 10 feet out. I never would have believed a loon could swim that fast underwater.
Another loon story - I stayed one spring on a small lake in the UP and there was a pair of loons with two babys. After a week or so there was only one baby. Then, couple days later, the parents were swimming quickly along and putting out the saddest sorta hooting and crying you could imagine. I asked my neighbor about it and he told me that, like the previous year, a bald eagle had picked off all the young ones and the adult loons hadn't yet given up on trying to find that last baby. |
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Posts: 661
Location: Roscoe IL | My sister came running in the cabin last week screaming that she had just seen a bald eagle pick up a baby duckling & fly away. I showed her a creeper & explained how it mimicks a baby duckling as well because muskies eat them too.. Yum Yum!
The look on her face was great... |
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