# How many of you when cleaning fish...



## rbeer (Feb 23, 2005)

always... any knowledge i can glean i try to use. it is amazing to open a 
30+ inch skamania steelhead and see it has a gizzard full of tiny midges! how many no-see-ums does it take to make dinner?
i caught a good size whitefish on the pier this fall that had to have about 75+ chinook salmon eggs in him. what a piggy! 
i often will gut the first panfish or two and see what's was for lunch.


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## Bagman (Apr 1, 2006)

Its amazing how much they can hold. This came out of a 30" northern plus another sunfish and the shiner it ate off the tip up.


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## unclecbass (Sep 29, 2005)

Just depends on the time of year with walleye. In May when I catch them in canada they are full of minnows. When I run out of bait I just give them a little squeeze and they puke up perfectly usefull partially digested minnows for me to keep on using. I once caught a big laketrout ice fishing that had waat appeared to be a 12 inch herring or whitefish in its stomach. That was the biggest treat I have found in a fish autopsy.


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## RichP (Jan 13, 2003)

I also frequently do autopsies on my catches.

So far, in 100% of the investigations the causes of deaths have been related to me.


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## fasthunter (Sep 15, 2006)

I usually just fillet most of them out, but I have done it before. I've found crayfish, minnows, other fish, ect. I know it sounds gross, but I've done it to deer before too. Sometimes it teaches you something about them and it can pay out later.


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## fasthunter (Sep 15, 2006)

Chawazz said:


> We had a "suprise guest" take a minnow throught he ice in 13FOW last year. He just hung on to that minnow with a claw and rode it all the way up to to the hole :SHOCKED:
> 
> I'm guessing they slow down but don't hibernate.


 That's pretty cool!


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## jeremy L (Sep 19, 2002)

i do it on all bigger fish, sometimes on the little guys. Gotta love lakers, finding a mudpuppy, a 4 inch tubebait, a a foot leader with 6 inch rubber worm, and the best of all a golfball sized rock has allowed me to come to the conclusion that lakers will eat anything that moves and that fits into thier mouth.


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## greelhappy (Feb 20, 2004)

I have checked the stomachs of perch I have caught with crayfish in them that I thought were still alive. And all the crayfish were facing the same way in the stomach. What that means I don't know. My theory is that the perch scan the bottom at night when the crayfish come out to eat. Why else would they be whole and alive looking, when the perch are caught early in the morning. I will say that the fish I'm talking about were caught in the summer.A few years ago I passed the crayfish info to a friend of mine who livesin the Detroit area. He bought some crayfish, came up to fish and killed monster perch on them. For whatever reason you cannot buy live crayfish in Sanilac County where I live.


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## Oldgrandman (Nov 16, 2004)

I caught a little 8-9 inch brookie that looked like it swallowed a ping pong ball once. Was full of little black bugs that resembled ants. Not being a fly fisherman (or too bright back then) I did not know what they were, but he sure found the mother load and gobbled up a baby crawler to boot. Talk about a pig! Unfortunately I didn't take a picture.
And often when you catch fish they are feeding heavily like that and spit up stuff when you get em in, had this happen a lot.
Yeah, I check out their contents.


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## wcalcaterra (Jan 25, 2007)

I opened a pike up that had a 14 inch Walleye in it. 

Does that mean I brought in an illegal fish??

Wait thats right I was in Canada, so the small ones would be OK.


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## fasthunter (Sep 15, 2006)

wcalcaterra said:


> I opened a pike up that had a 14 inch Walleye in it.
> 
> Does that mean I brought in an illegal fish??
> 
> Wait thats right I was in Canada, so the small ones would be OK.


:yikes: :yikes: WOW!!!!!


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## Whitetail70 (Feb 13, 2007)

wcalcaterra said:


> I opened a pike up that had a 14 inch Walleye in it.
> 
> Does that mean I brought in an illegal fish??
> 
> Wait thats right I was in Canada, so the small ones would be OK.


W, If that was my dad you were with, didn't all the bigger fish have an extra fish in the mouth/belly?:lol:


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