Giant freshwater fish attacks woman and tears a chunk out of her leg

I once wore open-toed shoes with red-polished toe-nails when visiting a friend who raised geese. Big mistake. Huge. Maybe they thought my toes were berries?

The long-awaited sequel to “The Birds.” This time, IRL.

Somewhat disconcerting, but not nearly as troubling as that human-hair/fidget-spinner lure linked upthread. Ewwww.

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So moray eels are basically xenomorphs

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I was swimming off a dock along the Winnipeg River within the area known as Lake Of The Woods maybe 35 years ago, and about 20 feet from me, a sturgeon jumped out of the water, got about 4 feet of air, then landed with a big splash (I don’t know what that was about, didn’t eat a passing jetliner).

The size of that thing scared the shit out of me. 6 feet long if not more. Was a good reminder, a happy reminder, that these beasts still ply the waters there.

End of the day, it is the fungal spores under the camp, the infected mosquito, the rabid squirrel or a head-on along the TransCanada in Cottage Country that will get you, not so much the fishies.

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The literature suggests they will attack things up to one third of their body length. So they will attack things they can’t swallow, but it is surprising they would have a go at a person.

Pike (close relative, close enough to hybridize) are known to have a go at any kind of sudden motion. So you get more attacks like this from Pike.

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I can’t help but wonder if it was actually a snakehead that attacked her like that.
Musky have been known to attack humans, but it’s pretty rare. Especially this viciously.
Snakehead OTOH are KNOWN to attack people like this. They’re not native, of course. From eastern Asia. Highly invasive. Extremely aggressive. No natural predators in N.America.
Not sure if they’ve made it to the Winnepeg area, but they’ve been in Ontario in areas since like 2012. So it’s possible. I know down here in SW WI, on the Wisconsin River, I’m careful to be SURE when I catch a dogfish (aka bowfin) which looks a lot like a snakehead. Cuz snakehead ARE in WI.
The lady said the head “looked like an alligator,” and that could totally apply to either a musky or a snakehead (or dogfish for that matter)

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Oh my god. That is both adorable and disturbing at the same time!

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Eh, but they have been using hair/fur/feathers and shiny metal such as spoons for hundreds (thousands?) of years before commercial lures became a thing. Half of fly fishing is making your own lures.

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Where she was immediately re-traumatized by Kenora’s Husky the Muskie roadside attraction.

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Many fishing stories about catching a fish in an Ontario lake only to have a muskie take some or all of it as lunch :slight_smile:

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Oh my. My grandparents lived on Lake Wisconsin. The bald eagles (population rebounded at the end of the 80’s - hope that hasn’t changed) are fierce a-hole raptors, but it’s still difficult to imagine that a large male could take down a river monster like that.

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You know a bird is kind of bad news when papers use the phrase “attempted rape flight” often enough to just switch to “ARF” after the first instance.

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Barracudas are dangerous MFs. Stories abound in Jamaica, one I heard involved a young woman’s losing both big toes to a barracuda. She had to learn how to walk all over again. Locals suggest swimmers/divers wear no jewelry nor metallic/bright/sparkly nail polish.

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OMFG! WTAF?! Eat yr heart out, Geiger.

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