A way too-low flying purple martin drowned in my pond today. I didn't see the crash happen, but one of the LMB was tuggin at the dead bird, pulling the carcass under repeatedly, in mimicked discovery channel shark-attack style. It was finally pulled under never to resurface.
I've heard of LMB and other big pred fish eating birds, but was surprised at this behavior.

Sorry...no photos or videos to back up my claim.

I took in a Canadian northern pike to mount once that had remnants of a crow in its stomach. I guess if you're hungry it doesn't matter.

I've seen swallows, martins and kingbirds swoop low over the water to get a drink. I'm suprised that we don't see more birds getting picked off by fish.

I've only seen ducklings and goslings get eaten by fish. I suspect if big enough, bass, pike and other predatory fish will eat what they can fit in their mouths.

I think there are some musky/pike lures that look like ducklings or smaller birds.

That would have been awesome to see. I recall a story last year of a LMB having a coyote pup in his gullet.



I've never heard of those before! Going to Google now...

I had about a 3lb lmb jump out of the water and latch onto my finger, scared the crap otta me.

The most surprising thing was the bird was dead, no twitching...flat out buzzard food. I never saw, heard, or read anything about LMB being pond jackals!

Google didn't come up with anything. Anybody have any pics or links to these bird imitation lures? So curious to see what they look like.

Those are homemade. You just steal your kid's rubber ducky, attach a couple of trebles to its feet and tie your line around its neck.

I have a hard plastic duckling lure that was my grandfathers. It has a wire running thru it from breast to tail, flat bottom. It's "feet" are colorado spinning blades, and it has a fairly large treble hook under the tail. It's roughly 3" - 4" long and a couple of inches tall.

Found it. It's called the Cree Duck and it was made in the 1950's.

There's this old guy who fishes the Mississippi at the same spot as me. In janurary when the ice sheets float down he ties a lil baby chicken to a line with the hook dangling from its neck. He swears that the noise they make as they skitter across the ice guarantees a huge fish by the end of the day. I've never seen it, but he claims to have snagged quite a few massive fish that way. They skitter across the ice, dump into the water and boom. Fish on.

-Skinny

That is awesome Scott.

We had a pair of mallards this year that had their babies eaten by fish. I don't know what kind of fish ate them. But my guess was bass.

I've heard of catfish eating dead birds.

My BIL and friends went camping and running catfish lines on the
Mississippi. They ran out of bait, and shot some blackbirds and
used them. At first they skinned them, later they just put them
on whole. He was surprised by how many 2-3 pound catfish took a
whole blackbird.

I can do you one better. My cousin in law swears that before I bought my pond, a cow some how died and rolled into the pond. He said that he could see catfish eating on it for a long while afterward.
Yum.

The cats might have been feeding on the maggots that were falling off the carcass too.

"The cats might have been feeding on the maggots that were falling off the carcass too."

Great. Who's having beef for dinner?

Sunil, can't you just picture a beef half floating in a pond, with the part above the water a writhing, squirming white mass of little worms? Then one will fall into the water every few seconds, and either a BG or CC will be waiting there to slurp it up.

Have fun at dinner tonite!

I had some of my best crappie fishing out of a pond where many cows had died. You could see the maggots falling off into the water. So I throw my minnow over there right against the carcass and my father said what are you doing, I guess he thought I was trying to snag the cow to bring it to shore. Anyway in the middle of his speech my cork was gone and I hooked a nice fat crappie went at least a pound.

So with my fathers surprised look on his face he says that was luck. So I tried it again and bamm another one. We must have caught at least 30 in that little whole and boy were they tasty.

I have a lure that looks like a muskrat for night fishing for musky. I have caught three muskies on it.

I'll second this for the crappie fishing, my favorite spot is on my old college campus, and there was a dead deer in the pond. Man it stunk after a while.....but the crappie bite was on. Whatever you threw in you got a big fat slab.

-Skinny

Good call! I have a scum-frog that looks like a little brown mouse....i am totally going to use that this weekend @ night.

Thanks again, CJ!
-Skinny

This past winter while working on my outbuilding at the farm, I came across a nest of field mice that had gotten crushed inside a pile of lumber we had. They apparently nested inside and when we started moving the boards, presto, dead mice. Out of curiosity, I threw the one adult we found out into the middle of the pond. About a minute later, the water boiled around it and it was gone. Very cool. Nothing but LMB and BG in the pond. Plus one or two snapping turtles, but neither one big enough to cause that sort of boil.

I have a sparrow trap that I use to catch house sparrows then trim the feathers off one wing and chuck them off the dock. Bass will learn they are good to eat and will inhale them. The bass I have now are feed trained and spoiled so they only eat them about half the time. When I was a teenager the pond's bass only ate live food and a live spashing sparrow on the surface lasted about 5 seconds.

That's the best use for a house sparrow that I've seen.

Stories like this are why I feed my fish well.

My five year old nephew spooked a fledgling red wing black bird out of its nest in the cattails last summer. The little guy made a valiant effort to fly to the next group of cattails but made a water landing about 8 feet short of the goal. We watched it struggle towards safety for a couple of minutes. Just as it was within about two feet of the cattails, I said: "It looks like he is going to make it."

As the words came out of my mouth, the little guy disappeared in a frothy swirl.

Without missing a beat my five year old nephew says: "It looks like it's going to be dead!"

I had to keep myself from laughing, and we went back to fishing.

DJT!!!!! Oh the brutality!

You monster!!!!

I hunted doves over a pond loaded with monster channel cats one year. I was totally shocked when the first quivering crippled dove was pulled under in a black swirl. We ended up losing 3 or 4 birds total that day to the fish.

Made me think that I needed to tie up some giant dove pattern dry flies to go after those giant cats.

What a story that would make!

Oh George!!!! That's a new one for you to tie.