Obviously those fish are easy prey due to their high visibility. Nothing like a popsicle now and then.
My dad and I were fishing for bluegills in an Upper Peninsula lake chain in Michigan one day. For some reason the lake was teaming with 1 to 2 pound smallmouth but nothing bigger. That may have been why this chain of lakes had such large bluegills. (It's called the Fortune Chain of Lakes off of Route 2 if anyone from Michigan has heard of it.)
Anyway, if we threw an under size bluegill in the water, and it was hooked too deep and floated, it wasn't long and an Osprey would come and pick it up and take it back to it's nest. It would come from at least a mile a way and apparently like other raptors could see well for long distances.
I decided to see how big a fish it could carry, and broke the neck of one of those 2 lb. smallies and waited for the bird to show up. It seemed like it took longer this time, as if the bird may have been having doubts.
Finally the bird shows up and picks up the fish. It had trouble though, and swayed from side to side and up and down, but finally the determined bird took the fish to the nest.
