Eagles at the Clause Fisheree

I don't fish the TFF often, sadly. It's a very enjoyable lake, but it takes extra time to pull boats and make the trek from my brother's place to the north. Regardless, we try to fish it every now and then. We decided to make an ice fishing trek this winter and fished in the memorial fisheree this past weekend. The weather was great, caught some fish (3rd place Northern), but the activity from the eagles was by far the highlight. Once they started picking up fishermen's catches, I had to get the camera out and ready and caught two passes. Here are a few highlight images, resolution reduced for web. Hope you enjoy, awesome birds.

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Very nice, especially the first one! Camera/lens info?

WOW! Those are cool. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks guys. Yeah, the first one was THE shot. Sadly on that pass the bird made two flybys and I filled my buffer by the time it descended, so didn't get the pickup, but I'll take it for sure.

@BlueRanger: I shoot a Sony A700 and had the 70-300G on it for these. It's not an ideal birding lens, but in the bright light it did pretty good. These were mostly at 200mm I think then cropped to eliminate trucks, shanties, etc. These were all handheld, and I wasn't prepared for them at all, so I missed focus on quite a few, and attempted manual focus lock on the 2nd try, but with such bright light I had the aperture closed down so my depth of field was pretty deep, so that helped for sure. Now if I can just convince my wife I NEED a 300 or 400mm prime. Daydreaming.

Fantastic! Would you be willing to allow us to post these or at least the first one on the TFFA website? Please email me at www.flambeauvista.com with your reply.

I suppose it depends how big and how far away the birds are - I really like my 70-300 Tamron, except that the VR (otherwise incredibly effective) seems to switch itself off every time I slide it out of my backpack. I was photographing baby eagles down along the Mississippi last spring and a guy showed up with a Canon 5D MkII and 300mm f/2.8 with a 2x converter - he gave me a look through the viewfinder and it was amazing, but I can't imagine carrying something that size on a hike.

Great photos of the eagles . And for the talk of Camera and lens, and talking about ' buffers ' , it brings a smile when I remembr sitting on Shore with a tripod and a 400 MM Lens ( Spirtone ??? ) and a Pentax Camera ( Spotmatic ? ) waiting for the Osprey to land on the nest next to the Black Rock - North West of Lake Bastine just before the narrows . Always nice on the TTF even when not fishing - though I threw allot of Muskie plugs around the rock !

I love to fish by the Dam . Quite a few times there will be an eagle flying over the dam and down the river carrying something, two years ago it was a large snake dangleing from its tallons. I was hoping it would not drop it in my boat. I now carry my camera, not high end equipment but still a memory catcher. Great TFF.

Scott, we've been in contact and I hope those pictures work out for you.

BlueRanger, that Tamron you speak of is something that only got made for the Sony A-mount after I purchased my Sony lens. I'm budget conscious due to close oversight by the CFO (wife) so that would have been ideal, but I like my Sony too, just more expensive. But you're right, a full frame with a 300mm 2.8, that would be a dream.

I was a little surprised to see the eagles at first since most migrate to open rivers/water. But of course with the dam right there, it made sense that they would stick around. Here are a few more from that day, in no particular order.

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Wow great pic's!!!

Here's a little old school with a Pentax K-1000 late 80's.