Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Snake eating dead CC

I found a snake tring to eat this CC this morning. I took the chance to measure and see what it was eating.

And it was nice to find that it was full of pellets.

The CC were 6 to 8 inche when stocked back in January and this one was 13"s. When do CC's spawn? Is it a size or age thing? And why did it die?

Fat little begger for being so dead,,, Maybe he ate himself to death??

Are Northern Water snakes present in your area? They regularly catch and eat fish and frogs.

References state that CC mature at 2-3 years of age and as short as 8 inches (if 3 years old). They spawn at higher temps and hence after LMB and BG (75 deg F, IIRC).

Maybe her number was up???

Theo, other than a lack of food, why would CC only grow to 8" at 3 years old ?

{Shoot, I'm at home now and don't have the history sidebar to pull the exact website I was looking at earlier, BUT) IIRC it was referring to a 3 year old Canadian female CC that was mature at 8". So it may have been hurting for food, but it also lived in colder water and in a climate with a shorter growing season. That website also stated the oldest CC (that it knew about) in the wild was a Canadian (I'm sure about this one) one that was 24.

CC seem to be like other species with a large North-South range; the Southerners grow faster and the Northerners live longer.

Interesting, Okie.

I recently killed about a 5 ft. Diamondback water snake at our biggest pond. It was waaay too fat, so I decided to cut 'er open and see what was inside. In addition to being full of eggs, I found about a 9" CC in there. Interesting how they'll go from frogs to 9" live fish.

Besides the fact that the CC is dead, does it look healthy? I was just wondering if its growth rate and general look was good.

davatsa, I googled Diamondback water snake and it looked like what was eating my CC.

shorty, as I googled the above. It said that the Northern water snake and Diamondback are simular.

I can't see anything wrong with it that would indicate a cause of death.

I would say it's condition is slightly thin to normal - WR in the 90-100% range.

Welcome to Fish Autopsy Forum.

Am I missing something? Wasn't the CC killed by the snake? I didn't think that snakes were scavengers.

If you look at the CC's eyes very closely you will see that he was alive up until the snake squeezed him to death...

"Welcome to Fish Autopsy Forum"

And then you've got Dave (davatsa) doing snake autopsies. ewwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!

Victor, I agree. The eyes tell the whole story.

When I found them this morning the snake was biteing the CC belly, and that was the only marks on it.

Here's your Diamond back water snake ...




They have very nasty backward slanted rows of teeth that harbor alot of germs and bacteria. I've found them to be not at all fearful or timid of me, or my Labs in the water. As a result, even though I can usually "NO" a dawg off of any animal or critter, I kill every water snake I can on our traing ponds.

I've seen those only since stocking CC last March, again this Apr. Saw them first this spring. One was in a fish trap, so not only CC, but are opportunistic. "I dont like spiders and snakes". Jim Stafford