ONE THAT GOT AWAY: MAN FREES PIKE TRAPPED BY PLASTIC

Adam Turnbull has been catching fish in the South Saskatchewan River for 17 years and had never seen anything like it. Turnbull, 28, was reeling in a northern pike near his home in Medicine Hat, Alta., last weekend and immediately realized something wasn’t quite right. “When I first saw the fish in the water, I thought maybe it had been attacked by another pike or a walleye ... until I actually picked the fish out of the water and noticed the plastic,” Turnbull said Wednesday. The plastic was a sports drink wrapper that had nearly cinched the pike in two in the middle of its body. “I was surprised he was able to survive like that with how big of a wound that was. It was at least three-quarters of an inch deep all the way around,” said Turnbull. He said it didn’t dawn on him to keep the fish.