Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Catfish Stomach Contents

After filleting a CC we cut open the stomach to see what it was eating. I can't figure it out...what was this cat eating?

If those are bones, I'd see if they match any waterfowl skeletons.....

How big was the fish?

Frogs?

Bill, I think you may be right. Those look like frog leg bones.

Hard to tell scale in the picture but is the longest bone in the picture say 4" long or longer? Can a single frog bone be that long? It would have to be the femur bone (upper leg), maybe there are big frogs in your area? Why do we see only femur bones and none of the smaller leg bones? Are those bones?

I agree, probably bullfrog bones.

I didn't put it on the scale. My SWAG is between 2-3 lbs. The longest "bones" were around 1.5-2" long. Again no ruler just a SWAG.

I did see a lot of dead leapord frogs (50-100) after ice off (pretty typical for my pondsafter winter)

Very interesting!!

And just how do those bones come out the other end of the CC? I imagine since we don't see bone graveyards in the bottom of our ponds that the bones must completely dissolve inside?

That is very interesting. I've been looking in fish tummies fish for at least 60 years. I've never seen bones like that in catfish, pike, walleye, bass, etc.

I know that my bass eat bullfrogs, because every once in a while a bass will actually jump into the weeds and tall grass around my pond and grab a frog sitting right at the water's edge.

As for the frog/bird/rodent bones, I would assume they dissolve. I've found a lot of partially digested forage fish in fish stomachs, where most of the bones had dissolved, but you could still tell the basic shape of the original snack.

My guess is a bird...maybe a duckling.

what is the vegetation? Also I don't understand why these 'fresh bones' appear to be all the same 'leg bone' What happened to the smaller leg and arm bones? Were they there as well? Might be time for a forensic pathologist. I wonder why they are so shiny if the rest of the frog was unrecognizable, had they been sitting in there for a while vs being freshly ingested? Hmmm..


Check this link, several people independently reported catfish stomachs full of 'chicken bones' and assumed thereby that someone was using KFC for bait.



KFC bones in a catfish?

other online reports of turtles found in CC stomach.

I think I read on here once that vegetation in catfish bellies is often incidental -- they just swallow it along with the prey and don't actually consume it as source of nutrition.