Stomach Contents

[The pelican]

Hello BWE - What's the craziest thing you have found in the stomach of a fish you caught? I have always been interested in checking the stomach contents of my catch but haven't put much thought into wat it actually tells me that can help me catch more fish.

Does anyone else regularly check the stomach of the fish you catch? Any smart people out there have much insight into what exactly that tells you beyond the obvious? For example...

1. How do you use the stomach contents to tell you what's going on out there?

2. How have you seen stomach contents vary by species caught?

3. Does anyone know how long it takes different species of gamefish to break down various types of food (finfish, squid, crustaceans, etc.)? If I find a greenback, how long could it have been there?

4. Do you ever find species with stomach contents that don't match the conditions/bait in the water? What does that tell you? That the food has been sitting in the stomach a while? That the fish has migrated quickly?

5. Do you generally try to find bait consistent with stomach contents from recent catches?

I'm specifically interested in members expirience with different species of kayak caught gamefish (YT, WSB, Halibut, Rockfish, etc.)

A couple Calico bass I caught have had whole small lobsters curled up inside their stomach. Maybe that means I should go hooping for some bugs to use as Calico bait?

Pat

[makobob]

As to the Calico bass, Pat were they lobsters or longustina?

[Seanbarnett]

Opened up a bluefin tuna and found sea horses inside.

[alanw]

Not very crazy, but a nice fat Sandbass had a whole crab in it's stomach, looked too big to fit in it's mouth in the first place but it was in there.

[taggermike]

I usually check stomach contents on the fish I catch. I don't know that it helps me catch more fish but I find it interesting. In warm water fish digest their food fast, I'd guess after a 1/2 hour you'd have trouble making a visual ID. If you really care or need to know you can count vertebrae or fins spine. The pen and beak of squid stays intact much longer than the body will. Crustacean and shelled mollusks are identifiable for much longer. I caught a YT last month on a surface iron cast in to a school of nervous sardines. The YT had squid, smelt, and juvenile rockfish in it's stomach but no sardines. That seamed kinda strange to me. In college I helped a grad student friend collect the stomach contents of bat rays. There was a oyster farm operation in Humboldt Bay that was killing bat ray under the belief that the rays were eating their oysters. They would find where the rays had been rooting around in the oyster beds as well as shattered oyster shells. They had a permit to drag a big trawl over their beds to catch, and kill, the rays. 100s and 100s of bat rays. What my friend found from stomach contents was that the rays did indeed eat oysters, but not too many. Their main food items on and around the beds were actually rock crabs and blood worms. The crabs and worms are both big predators of small oysters. The rays were actually helping the oyster farm by removing the crabs and worms and the company immediately stopped the netting. Yay, happy ending. Mike

[Lipripper92592]

Originally Posted by taggermike

I usually check stomach contents on the fish I catch. I don't know that it helps me catch more fish but I find it interesting. In warm water fish digest their food fast, I'd guess after a 1/2 hour you'd have trouble making a visual ID. If you really care or need to know you can count vertebrae or fins spine. The pen and beak of squid stays intact much longer than the body will. Crustacean and shelled mollusks are identifiable for much longer. I caught a YT last month on a surface iron cast in to a school of nervous sardines. The YT had squid, smelt, and juvenile rockfish in it's stomach but no sardines. That seamed kinda strange to me. In college I helped a grad student friend collect the stomach contents of bat rays. There was a oyster farm operation in Humboldt Bay that was killing bat ray under the belief that the rays were eating their oysters. They would find where the rays had been rooting around in the oyster beds as well as shattered oyster shells. They had a permit to drag a big trawl over their beds to catch, and kill, the rays. 100s and 100s of bat rays. What my friend found from stomach contents was that the rays did indeed eat oysters, but not too many. Their main food items on and around the beds were actually rock crabs and blood worms. The crabs and worms are both big predators of small oysters. The rays were actually helping the oyster farm by removing the crabs and worms and the company immediately stopped the netting. Yay, happy ending. Mike

It's nice when science is fact based, not based on emotions. Sounds like a cool project and a positive outcome.

[The pelican]

Bob - They could have been langostino. This was about 5 years ago and I had only been fishing for a short time and bugging a couple times so I guess I could have been confused. Good point.

Mike - Sick story! Good info on the digestion rate. Where'd you come up with that? Educated guess? I would have thought it takes much longer for a meal to digest but have nothing to back that up.

Last summer I caught a YT full of squid and one sanddab. The yellow was caught on the surface, w a flylined greenie, in the kelp. This fish had clearly been eating on the bottom outside of the kelp forest. The next week I went out a couple times to conduct an expiriment. I covered some ground in areas near my previous catch that seemed like they would hold squid nests and dabs. Spent a ton of time looking at the fish finder. My hope was to be the first one to my own secret squid bite. Never found a nest and didn't get any results. Anyone else use this strategy and come up with good results or do you guys think it's a waste of time?

Pat

[jsunmkly]

Originally Posted by The pelican

A couple Calico bass I caught have had whole small lobsters curled up inside their stomach. Maybe that means I should go hooping for some bugs to use as Calico bait?

I don't think you should catch small bugs because that will be illegal right?

[Hunters Pa]

Originally Posted by jsunmkly

I don't think you should catch small bugs because that will be illegal right?

Crawdads??

[The pelican]

Originally Posted by jsunmkly

I don't think you should catch small bugs because that will be illegal right?

Besides being illegal, it the idea of catching and using lobster as bait for kelp bass is just plain funny to me. Maybe it wasn't clear that I was joking.