A fisherman experienced a tense moment last week when a bald eagle swooped down with outstretched and menacing talons and snatched the walleye he had just caught and offered to the raptor via the end of his paddle.
“It was intense, I have to admit,” Kevin Labrosse told USA Today/ForTheWin on Wednesday.
Labrosse was fishing with his girlfriend, Claudie Morin, on Lake Temiskaming in northern Ontario, Canada, when the couple first caught the eye of the bald eagle.
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“It all started when I was taking my jig off the walleye I caught,” Labrosse explained to ForTheWin. “The eagle came swooping over my head to take the fish, and I never saw it coming. My girlfriend yelled out and I looked up after hearing the loud wings flapping. Scared the crap out of me.”
So then Morin decided to take the fish and wave it in the air to see if the bald eagle would come back and, sure enough, it did, prompting her to drop the fish in the bottom of the boat.
Labrosse then decided he was going to give the fish to the bird of prey. He put it on the paddle and held it high.
“The eagle came around us and swooped down from behind us and took it,” Labrosse said. “It was the most exhilarating feeling in my life. It then took the fish to a nearby tree and ate it.”
With another fish about the same size, Labrosse did it again and the grateful bald eagle scooped it up off the paddle again.
“This time it came at us straightforward, and that’s where we got the epic shot,” Labrosse said. “Amazing feeling. Exhilarating, yet scary at the same time. Nothing like it.”
Photo courtesy of Kevin Labrosse.
