Graphic!!! Channel cat stomach contents pics

So as I said in my previous post about our St. Croix fishing trip, I am making this post because of what we found when we cut open the stomach of the 14# channel cat we caught. First off, when I went to cut it open I found the stomach to be STUFFED and very taught… so why this fish was eating again is beyond me. Goes to show, I suppose, what pigs channel cats really are (no offense to pigs, I promise).

In the first pic you can see the stomach laying on the board next to what was inside it. When I first cut it open the entire contents came out in a 5″ by 3″ by 2″ nearly solid blob. I had to pick the blob apart using a couple pieces of silverware to figure out what we were looking at.

Finally I noticed what was in the second picture… the dorsal spine of another channel cat. Noticing the serrations along the inside of the spine gave me the final clue I needed to figure out what it was. The one pic I regret not getting was of that spine next to the fin of the cat I was cleaning… because they were, very literally, the same size.

It looked like we had almost everything from the head back… spine, ribs, tail and one dorsal fin. The yellowish jelly-like stuff around everything was what was left of the half-digested meat of the fish.

It just goes to show that channels are voracious eaters, even cannibalizing their own dead as well as stuffing themselves, literally, to the gills and then eating more yet. Having seen this I’ve come to one serious conclusion:

There’s no excuse for coming back from a channel cat trip empty-handed. If they’re there, they will eat. If you’re not catching it’s not because they’re not biting, it’s because they’re not there.

The last picture threw me for a loop. At first I thought I had a hermaphrodite fish on my hands… egg sack and milt glands. Then I realized that what I thought was a milt gland was actually fat. As I started looking thru the innards I found a good-sized handful of the stuff. That’s when it occurred to me that they’re on their annual pre-winter binge.

Now is the time, people, for being on heavy-duty channel patrol… they’re stuffing themselves for winter and should consume just about anything you throw their way. Oddly, though, that night all they wanted was crawlers.

Maybe it was because they were too full of other fish to eat anything else?

Ick. This is why I never cut open a channel cat. I’ve seen them packed so full of mayflies here that they would explode like a Monty Python movie if they ate one more mint. Those egg sacks look almost ready and we are 8-9 months away from the spawn. Something not quite right there. Send Chamberschamps a PM about your pickled fish he makes some really nice stuff.

I forgot to mention the egg sacs… they were full of tiny, undeveloped eggs. The eggs were tightly adhered to the walls of the sac and wouldn’t come looks even with a good bit of effort. It looked to me like she had spawned early this summer and was already working on her eggs for the next spawn.

I don’t know how long it takes for channel cat eggs to mature, but they weren’t ready to be laid and all I could figure was that they were just getting ready for the 2013 spawn.

14lb mn channel cats = tons of mercury good luck with that

Id rather eat a 6lbs bass

I’m sure webiste forum would support that too?

Im pretty sure the highly vascularized yellow blob on the top is a gonad…and the less vascularized yellow blob on the bottom is the stomach.

I think a lot of freshwater fish begin gonad (sperm/egg) development soon after spawning. I’ve heard others start to put energy into their livers…which get larger during the late summer and fall…then during the winter they use the stored energy to further develop the gonads.

JP

Armchair,

After our first long warm spell when the temps dropped there were a number of cats cleaned at Everts that didn’t have anything in their tummy’s.

It’s really hard to say never when we’re talking about the river.

Quote:

---

Im pretty sure the highly vascularized yellow blob on the top is a gonad…and the less vascularized yellow blob on the bottom is the stomach.

---

Yeah, the yellow oval at the top is the egg sack. The other yellowish blobs are all body cavity fat deposits.

The stomach was long gone from the gut pile by the time that picture was taken.

Quote:

---

Armchair,

After our first long warm spell when the temps dropped there were a number of cats cleaned at Everts that didn’t have anything in their tummy’s.

It’s really hard to say never when we’re talking about the river.

---

Too true, BK, too true!!

“14lb mn channel cats = tons of mercury good luck with that

Id rather eat a 6lbs bass

I’m sure webiste forum would support that too?”

+1

i wouldnt eat a 6lbs bass tho, but those 12lbs wallys are the shizzal

A hungry pervert

Oooh, how did you know?

I normally advise folks to analyze stomach contents when
they have trouble finding channel cats or finding what they are eating.

Since channel cats are opportunistic they feed when they can. Yours seems to have found another dead channel cat.
But discoverring the food source often leads to channel cat location as well as the best bait.

In lean years fish will not lay eggs and reabsorb their eggs to survive. A liver enzyme controls if the eggs mature
(and get laid) or not. Stressed females do not have enough fat to produce the enzyme and absorb the eggs instead of laying.

Saturday night a greedy channel cat ate a flathead bait and was later eaten by a 44 pound flathead. The channel cats here have been aggressive all summer.

Hey Robby. Are the water levels ridiculously low in your parts? I think if you can find the fish in MN right now, they will probably be going crazy with the fall feedbag. This is if you can find deep enough water to be holding them right now.

Indeed. Deep water. That can be hard to find.

Quote:

---

Indeed. Deep water. That can be hard to find.

---

On the Minnesota river near Mankato is is almost impossible.

Quote:

---

Quote:

---

Indeed. Deep water. That can be hard to find.

---

On the Minnesota river near Mankato is is almost impossible.

---

I wasn’t mocking, really. It’s true.

I know one 40-ish foot hole on the MN and that’s it… Otherwise there’s only one river I know of that’s got consistently deeper water under almost all conditions…

The Croix is a haven of deep water, was sort of what I was referring to.

Our ‘holes’ last weekend were 5 feet deep. No flow on the MN either. This has got to be the worst year I have seen, but it can only get better, right?