PUBLISHER

(Editor's Note: Jerry Robinson offers a couple of fish tales this week.)

What a story

Marco Spani lent his boat to Ross Locher, daughter Jesann and friend Jane Connelly to fish for salmon at Three Tree Point.

They took along three hot dogs to eat. They forgot to take any herring so Ross put part of his cheese-filled hot dog on his hook.

Fishing in forty feet of water, using a downrigger at 60 feet, they thought they were caught on the bottom.

With his reel almost empty, they backed up the boat and suddenly the line went slack so they laid the rod down while they hand-pulled the line back and saw a flasher and guessed they were hung up on the prop.

It was, so they unwrapped the line and reeled in a 26-pound hatchery-raised king salmon.

Several other boats came close and asked what they used for bait.

Meet John Richards

Master fisherman, master storyteller.

John, shown here cutting a filet off a freshly caught salmon, is highly regarded for his fishing skills around Three Tree Point, but he is equally revered for his raconteur prowess.

This week he told us about landing a small king salmon. He was cleaning it on the beach when he was startled to have a huge Bald Eagle land five feet from him and begin devouring the guts he had not yet disposed of.

The obviously ravenous bird paid no attention to him and John still had some innards to dispose of so he slowly backed away about two feet and Mister Mungry watched for several seconds, then cautiously moved over and snatched the goody bite about two feet from John.

He swallowed his prize and then took off with a noisy swoosh.

One day John was fishing along the shore when he heard a squawking symphony as several crows were dive-bombing a lone bald-headed eagle. He watched the harassment for awhile till he lost sight of the air battle and went back to his fishing.

Shortly thereafter he looked up in time to see an eagle passing overhead with a crow gripped firmly in his talons.

Apocryphal? It could happen. Crows get careless.

Retired, John fishes a lot so I will keep you posted.