Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help The Mystery of the Great Raft Attack

This one is very confusing. I hope someone can shed some light on what happened here.

Here is the story. This spring I bought a inflatable swim raft for the pond.




Everything was great. We used it for about three weeks, and then went on vacation for the week before the Fourth. When I came back, the raft had all but sunk. One little corner was sticking out of the water with a bit of air trapped in it. I figured a stupid heron landed on it to survey all the fish, and popped it with his claws.

But now it gets interesting. I went to pull it out today and hopefully patch the couple of small holes from the bird. I dragged it to the beach and then could not move it because it was full of water. I moved it a bit, and water started coming out of all of the holes in the bottom (red part).





It looked like something has chewed the crap out of the bottom of the raft. These holes were everywhere. One is about 8 inches in diameter. I decided that there is no way I could patch it and decide it is a loss.

So, I cut the sides with my knife so that the water could drain quickly, and out flows 4 dead fish (little BG and one small bass). I think, "that is weird," and pulled again. out flowed this!



I confirmed that it is a muskrat skull. Many other small bones flowed out with the water. I believe that they are all from the same muskrat.

What happened? Did fish rip the bottom up trying to eat algae? Did the raft just go bad in the water (I don't see how this is possible)? Did the muskrat try to turn it into a home? Could it be turtles?

I am so confused!

Brian...I'm totally stumped - what an interesting story! No way the muskrat could have been reduced to bare bone in that amount of time...no way a fish could chew a hole into plastic that thick IMO.

Turtles...maybe. Muskrat bones were already in the bottom of the pond and when you pulled up the raft it drug them up with it?

Feasible explanation?

No, they flowed out from inside the raft when I cut it open. I felt like Hooper in Jaws. All I needed was a license plate!

the anchor was on the bottom. the raft was suspended above the bottom by about 6-7 feet.

I might cut the rest of the raft open and see if there is anything else in there tomorrow. Maybe Hoffa!

If the water was warm enough, maceration could have reduced the carcass to bones if the muskrat suffocated in the raft or someone shot the muskrat on the raft with a shotgun. I do like the explanation about pulling the bones up with the raft and them getting caught in a large hole if it scraped the bottom as you brought it in. How about a snapping turtle cleaning off the bones of the muskrat and potentially causing the damage?

Edit:

O.k. scratch the theory about dregging up the bones. It wasn't mine anyway.

I need to add that also flowing out of the raft were small chunks of fur attached to skin. I thought that it was a brown spiky fungus until I saw the bones.

With this new evidence my guess is:

Muskrat chewed holes, ventured inside the raft through the hole chewed, got trapped, suffocated, decayed. Fish found their way in there as fish will do, got trapped, also died.

Don't downplay the role of Sasquatch in this series of events. Not sure WHERE they fit in yet, but I'm sure they had a hand in this.

Not bad. But why would the muskrat chew so many holes and then climb in? He has a few burrow holes around the pond. I like Cecil's turtle idea, but the bones would have been dragged out by the turtle.

The Sasquatch theory is a possibility...

Coach, I wouldn't put it past any rodent doing this for no good reason other than they could. Very unfortunate and hope you got a good amount of use out of it before they took it out.

Muskrats will make a sort of hut out of grass so they can get out of the water, but be covered by grass from any overhead predators (hawks/owls). I think it was trying the same thing with the raft, went inside and couldn't find it's way out, and drowned.

Maggots, fish, heat, turtles and bacteria will devour a carcass pretty quickly!

Maybe the muskrat got in and died. Then turtles smelled the festering carcass, heating in the bag so to speak, and tore into the raft to get at the carcass.

Sounds like the best explanation to me. The maceration by the warm water would make it easy for the turtles to pull off the jelly like flesh.

There must be a pirate involved in this mystery some way. Rat looking for buried treasure ?

Cecil wrote: "The maceration by the warm water would make it easy for the turtles to pull off the jelly like flesh."

I think the "jelly like" comment put me over the top.

put that on your pb&j, junior
-
(for Catmandoo only: THIS IS NOT A DARE)

Cue the Twilight Zone music...

...and maybe a barf-bag or two.....

I haven't responded because I am still gagging on the "jelly" comment.