Frank Church wrote:

Since my pontoon boat is
rather open in front and my (kaf kaf) jewels were at water level, I had
visions of those big assed front teeth goint to work on me. Needless to
say I relocated upstream a bit. Never heard of anyone being attacked by a
beaver but I wasn't about to find out first hand.

Frank the fearful...




My home river has quite a few beaver in it. It amazes me how accustomed
the fish get to their presence. There several beaver that live in the
biggest, slowest pool for miles. In the calm water, the fish are very
spooky and often just a ripple from a step into the water will put
down the feeding fish. However, I've fished the pool and had beaver swim
right through the midst of a pod of feeding fish without the fish
missing a beat. Even a tail slap from the beaver don't put the fish down.

Early this Spring I encountered my first "aggressive" beaver. I was
moving upstream to fish a slot of deeper water next to the beaver's
lodge when I saw the beaver come out, cross the river and start swimming
toward me. I was watching it swim, thinking nothing of it and waited for
it to give me the tail slap. Soon it was 20 feet away, then 15 and I
started backing up. Then 10 feet and I poked it in the nose with the tip
of my rod. Still it kept swimming. I scampered up the bank and
thankfully it didn't follow. It got right to the bank, stared at me,
then flipped and did its tail slap. I circled around the lodge.

There was that story about Jimmy Carter getting attacked by a "mad"
beaver when fishing. I always thought it was an urban legend kind of
thing but.........

Any ideas what would have caused this? I remember that beaver have there
pups(?) during Winter? Maybe they were getting ready to start leaving
the lodge or?

Willi