# strange stomach contents...



## DROPTINE 14 (Jan 20, 2006)

i iced 4 keeper walleye sunday out of houghton lake 1.7 miles from the nearest shore and when they were taken home and cut up they had tad-poles in the stomach. where would they have gotten them? and one had a crawfish in its stomach, is that normal? i have never seen it before.


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## BrikTan (Nov 1, 2008)

I speared a 36" pike last year and the damn thing had a 10" long bullfrog in its stomach!!!!

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## bigpapa8108 (Nov 1, 2012)

My buddy caught a northern with some pickeled bologna in it

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## bylawhunter (Jun 23, 2010)

I caught a 9lb 32" northern Sunday with a 14" pike in its stomach. What a fish felt like a peice of drift wood hauling it in.

Sorry don't mean to highjack.


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## bowman68 (Feb 11, 2007)

4 keeper eyes according to some guys or guy on here that cant be done on houghton lake. good job on the fish. i caught 1 last year that was 16 inches it spit out a 7 inch perch.


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## wartfroggy (Jan 25, 2007)

DROPTINE 14 said:


> i iced 4 keeper walleye sunday out of houghton lake 1.7 miles from the nearest shore and when they were taken home and cut up they had tad-poles in the stomach. where would they have gotten them? and one had a crawfish in its stomach, is that normal? i have never seen it before.


 I don't see much of anything suprising about a walleye eating a crawfish or a tadpole. Not something you see every day, but no reason for them to not eat them.


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## Hockey9019 (Feb 28, 2008)

Not a walleye but we caught a nice 27-28" pike and it had a 16" water snake in it that it just ate hours before. Scared the hell out of my brother when he cut it open. 

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## Upnorth365 (Nov 8, 2012)

Wonder if I can pick up a dozen tadpoles at the bait shop for tip ups lol


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## Scout 2 (Dec 31, 2004)

Upnorth365 said:


> Wonder if I can pick up a dozen tadpoles at the bait shop for tip ups lol
> 
> 
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 You can go to a shallow pond with a mud bottom and they are in the mud under the ice. We use to get them all the time out of a pond close to me. The smaller ones work good for perch


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## rageoda (Jan 17, 2009)

Crawfish shouldn't be too much a surprise, I've even found baby ones in the bellies of perch on St. Clair.


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## diztortion (Sep 6, 2009)

Were they tadpoles or mudpuppies? 

I thought frogs bred in the Spring and by mid summer most were grown into smaller frogs.


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## DGuw85 (Jan 26, 2011)

Yeah crawfish are no surprise, fish a very rocky river in the U.P. and they seem to be the main staple of the walleyes there. 

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## Scout 2 (Dec 31, 2004)

diztortion said:


> Were they tadpoles or mudpuppies?
> 
> I thought frogs bred in the Spring and by mid summer most were grown into smaller frogs.


 What we use to get was tadpoles and many of them were starting to get back legs. My son took some to school and they put them in a fish tank and they devloped into green frogs. I thought the same as you about breeding. I used to use the soft shell crayfish on perch in the summer aat South Haven and many times the bait shop in town did not have any but we did because I caught my own. There were a lot of peo[le upset because we were only ones getting fish. One time a boat came over next to us and could not get a bite so them being nice looking ladies my buddy and I gave tem a few and they started catching fish, so I guess you could say we gave them crabs


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## sswhitelightning (Dec 14, 2004)

I've cut crawfish out of walleye from Burt and mullet lakes. Not sure about winter tads. Most likely mud puppies. I was surprised one spring I caught the biggest laker of my life near tawas and its stomach was packed with 6 inch walleyes.


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## storman (Mar 12, 2008)

Ive seen tad poles under the ice in a farm pond before, bodies about the of a quarter. Sounds like you fished the middle grounds would be my guess with the tads coming out of the mucky bottom up in the shallow weedy water.

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## mdr1981 (Feb 2, 2013)

Many hatch in the spring / summer and take over a year or more to develop fully


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## TK81 (Mar 28, 2009)

mdr1981 said:


> Many hatch in the spring / summer and take over a year or more to develop fully


In-laws have a small lake on their property near Baldwin. Lake is full of huge tadpoles in the winter. There are a lot of springs near shore and you can see them in the shalllows where there is no ice. Bullfrogs...they do take over a year to turn into frogs. Once in a while you will stumble into bloody carnage where Mr otter has filled his belly with a mess of these tadpoles on the edge of the ice.

Fall perch I get are often loaded with 1.5 inch craw.


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## wartfroggy (Jan 25, 2007)

diztortion said:


> Were they tadpoles or mudpuppies?
> 
> I thought frogs bred in the Spring and by mid summer most were grown into smaller frogs.



As was mentioned, some tadpoles will winter over in the mud or on bottom. I have seen them under the ice in the winter up in the shallow bayous around ice out. Have also caught them in a minnow trap in a pond when trying to catch minnows. And yes they were tadpoles, not mud puppies.


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## jinxedone (Jan 23, 2013)

this monster catfish had a 14" sheephead in it's gullet with the back half of the fish still in it's throat when it slamed my jighead.


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## DROPTINE 14 (Jan 20, 2006)

my wonderings were more of where would the fish have gotten these tadpoles? and its not like houghton has rocks for the craws to hide by, so are the fish already hunting the rivers? how far will a inland walleye travel in a day?... and the next point i have not marked a fish in that hole since sunday morning..... wierd....


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## mdr1981 (Feb 2, 2013)

Houghton is full of rocks, swim in it, it's sand for the first 100 yards then changes to small to softball sized rocks not sure how far that goes after but you can see the change on calm clear days and feel it witb your feet, the change occurs around the 5_1/2' mark.


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## Scout 2 (Dec 31, 2004)

DROPTINE 14 said:


> my wonderings were more of where would the fish have gotten these tadpoles? and its not like houghton has rocks for the craws to hide by, so are the fish already hunting the rivers? how far will a inland walleye travel in a day?... and the next point i have not marked a fish in that hole since sunday morning..... wierd....


Craw fish don't need rocks to live. We use to get them in the weedy backwaters all the time and there were no rocks anywhere. We use to net the soft shell ones under the overhanging grass along the river banks, again no rocks nearby.


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## [email protected] (Mar 13, 2012)

Cleaned a dandy pike that had a smokey link in its gut, with my treble n line attached!! Got him fishing for channel cats at nite on local lake. Wasnt expecting that in the glow of head lamp. More later, getting a bite!! Shrubby


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## Red Ark (Aug 22, 2011)

On houghton lake fishing east bay a few years back my cousin caught a 24" pike on a tip up and when he cleaned it he found a 11" walleye in it. Pike are crazy and will eat anything. Last ice can be some awesome pike fishing to. 

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## wartfroggy (Jan 25, 2007)

DROPTINE 14 said:


> my wonderings were more of where would the fish have gotten these tadpoles? and its not like houghton has rocks for the craws to hide by, so are the fish already hunting the rivers? how far will a inland walleye travel in a day?... and the next point i have not marked a fish in that hole since sunday morning..... wierd....


 Well, the fish probably swam up to the tadpole, opened it's mouth, and ate it. And crawfish don't need rocks. We used to trap and net hundreds of them out of a little pond that was solid weeds and only abuot 3 ft deep. There is no reason to think that crawfish and tadpoles are not readily available in any lake, so the notion that they swam to a river to eat them and then returned does not make sense.


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## bclinton (Jan 31, 2005)

mdr1981 said:


> houghton is full of rocks, swim in it, it's sand for the first 100 yards then changes to small to softball sized rocks not sure how far that goes after but you can see the change on calm clear days and feel it witb your feet, the change occurs around the 5_1/2' mark.



kcco! Bfm


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## Long Spurs (Mar 29, 2005)

Chive ondr1981


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## Sasquatch Lives (May 23, 2011)

My friend caught a keeper bass during a tourney and put it in the lifewell. Opened the livewell to put the next one in and my buddy jumped back yelling "snake"! Evidently the bass had regurgitated a live black eel of some sort about 10 inches long and it was swimming around in the livewell! Freaked us out! Ever tried to get a squirming slimy live eel out of a livewell before?


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