Fishermen pull pipe bombs from Sacramento River. ‘We thought it was an anchor’

John Kenyon thought he’d hooked a big one on a Sunday fishing trip on the Sacramento River in Northern California — maybe a little too big.

“My father-in-law had the net ready and we got it up towards the boat and we thought it was an anchor,” Kenyon said, according to KOVR. “My father-in-law said it’s a bomb, and he’s like, ‘Everybody gets to the front of the boat!’”

A second fisherman also reeled in a pipe bomb a few minutes later in the same part of the river near Battle Creek in Tehama County, the sheriff’s office said in a release.

Tehama County deputies responded by boat about 1:15 p.m. and discovered the homemade bombs were still live, the release says.

They shut down that part of the river and called a Shasta County bomb squad for assistance. The bomb squad detonated the explosives on site, the release says.

“The Sheriff’s Office requests all fisherman fishing in this area be careful, it is unknown if (there) are other devices in the water,” deputies wrote. “If you find a suspicious device contact 911 immediately.”

“I think that they’re trying to blow up salmon, knocking them out and having them float up and taking them,” Kenyon said, KOVR reported.