Resourceful Crows

It has been well documented that members of the crow family can tend to be quite resourceful in adapting their behaviour to help meet their needs.
Walking beside the River Wye near Symonds Yat, I was this morning surprised to see a largish black bird hovering above the river. As you might expect, at the moment the river is swollen and fast flowing. Earlier I had seen a comorant stood on the bank amongst a line of mallard duck; but this was no cormorant. Even though it was at first obscured by some bank side trees, I was confident that I had correctly identified the bird as a carrion crow.
As I approached closer, the bird flew from the river with a white object in its mouth. Flying into the branches of a tree, it consumed its catch. Could a crow be fishing?
What I think was actually occurring was the crow was picking from the surface of the water, pieces of bread. I can only surmise that someone up stream had been feeding ducks (perhaps at the Saracens Head), the bread was floating downstream to be picked up by this crow.
Watching carefully, I could see that the crow was not doing this without some risk. The bird would briefly hover above the river, though as it descended its tail and wing tips definitely entered the water. With the river flowing so quickly, the bird had to get its timing just right, each time it took a piece of bread (and I observed it take three pieces), there was a chance that it would end up in the water almost certainly leading to its demise.
At one point, another crow flew up the river, but it was quickly chased away by the resident bird.