Went fishing to a new small lake. Sunnies were small, bass were huge. Released a 23 inch bass. Fishing was fun but it failed to hold a candle to a cool life experience. Had a pair of loons feeding their babies 10 feet from the boat. Cool watching them interact with each other. Adults were catching small fish and feeding.

What a great experience! Thanks for sharing.

Nice!

Sure is better than watching TV. Glad you saw that and thanks for sharing.

That's what I love most in the fishing experience. Seeing all the birds and other animals. Loons are so special.

Thank you for taking your camera and sharing your nice day.

Not an expensive camera. It was my cell phone.

That's one species on my bucket list but I'm literally in their flyover country so unless I catch one on a layover I doubt I'll ever see one.

phones are expensive cameras...unless you're using a cheap flip phone lol

Makes the saying true - "there's more to fishing than catching fish."

Never saw nesting loons, but we get them over wintering on the bay...

SniperBB, I finally broke down and got an iPhone, mainly for the camera. They are so clean and sharp in pictures, that at times I don't even need a scanner for my art images. I just use my phone for the larger ones. Fast and easy, easy to carry in any weather.

I'm so glad I at last heeded the advice from someone who gave me a great tour of their trapline and lovely mountains. I take mine everywhere now. Expensive, yes, but worth every dollar.

How great to capture those loons in memory .

I have enjoyed that view with wood ducks. Amazing that such tiny balls of fluff even stand a chance, lol. Get to close and mama just made a sound and the biddies disappeared into the lillies.

That is great!! It is hard for me to fathom that a large percent of people never experience nature like an outdoorsman. We see and witness outdoor majestic event that most don't.

Thanks for sharing and great pictures.

Yeah the picture quality is so good on phones these days...its almost too good. You cant post most of the pictures on forums because the the file sizes that are generated are too big for most forums.

The only thing phone cameras do is zoom for trying to take pictures of something at long range because pixellation happens too quickly. Your best best is taking the pic at minimal zoom then try to blow it up in editing.

Loons are one of my favorites. I haven't been lucky enough to see them with young yet .

Mostly what we see while fishing

I rescued a loon one time while walking along the bank fishing.
Everytime I walked down the bank, that loon followed and would swim right up to the bank and look at me.
After this happened 3-4 times, I took a closer look at it and saw a fish hook coming out of its neck and some line dangling from its beak.
So the next time it breached itself against the bank, I knelt down to get a closer look and it stayed right there,
I slowly extended my hands and picked it up and set it on the ground, It stayed put. I then got ahold of the barbed end of the hook that was sticking out of its neck and pulled the hook and the line out through the hole in its neck and placed it back in the water.
It began to franticly hust for fish to eat, as I am sure that it hadn't been able to eat for a while.
I then started frantically trying to catch some fish to throw out ahead of him to catch and eat.
I caught a few and threw them out, and sure enough he ate the first one and stayed close by in case I had another one for him and I threw another one to him.
I can't help but wonder what was going through that loon"s mind to allow me to pick it up out of the water.
It must have been to the point of, "Either help me, or kill me and put me out of my misery."

Great pictures. Love to hear them.
Mac

Fished a lake yesterday that had a loon nesting area that was well marked off

We have fed loons fish. Next time loons are nearby, splash a small fish in the water head first. The loon behavior might surprise you.