The Eagles Have Landed

The eagles have landed today in the Catfish Creek area of the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Until this afternoon I had not been able to get out and wet a line.

I spent the day Saturday in Jacksonville at the gun show and really didn't expect to stay the day.

 There were thousands of people out there and like myself, almost everyone I spoke with had concerns about their ability to purchase weapons in the future.

The guns and ammo were going out the door faster than hotcakes and I honestly cannot remember being in the company of a nicer bunch of Americans.

Anyway, this afternoon I packed up three rods and headed for Catfish Creek loop to see if anyone was having any luck with the redfish.

Only two other fishermen were in the area; one didn't get a hit and the other gentleman who I see regularly in the area said he had a hit on cut mullet but the fish dropped the bait before he could set the hook.

I moved on and started pitching a gold spoon, a paddle tail bait and a spinner bait into various areas without any hookups.  I had only one hit during the brief time I was in the area before a Fish and Wildlife officer came by.

We chatted a bit about the fishing and the closure of Peacocks Pocket road before he moved on.

The temperature was in the high 60s and the wind was blowing steadily out of the northeast and since I was getting cold, I decided to head for home.

As I was driving down Catfish Creek Loop road, I caught up with the fish and wildlife officer who was taking pics of something in the road.

As I got closer I realized it was an American Eagle, so I got out my trusty Nikon Coolpix and started taking pics of the shy birds.

There were two eagles in the road along with a couple of vultures arguing over some "road kill" and they weren't a bit afraid of us.

After a while the wildlife officer slowly moved on and I edged closer to the two eagles until they took off.

I started to turn around and noticed that the braver of the two birds circled around to continue with it's meal so I edged as close as I could and took a few more pics and the video below.  Hope you enjoy them.


The last time I had the pleasure of seeing an American eagle in the wild was in the middle of Shiloh Marsh road, and that one was extremely wary of humans.   I never could get as close as I did to these two birds.

Although today turned out to be "fishless", the eagles have landed!

Till next time, Tight Lines.