pike eating turtles

Almost every spring on the back waters of the upper Mississippi I catch a pike with a bulge in its stomach and you can feel a turtle shell, sometimes even the legs. I’ve never kept one and cut it open but I know it is a hardshell turtle. Today we caught three of them with turtles the biggest was probably about a 5# fish and I’m guessing the turtle was 4 inches wide. I’ve only see it on this body of water and only this time of year. Has anyone else seen this or know why they ate eating turtles and can they digest the shells. If I knew how to post pics from smart phone I would.

That’s freakin crazy!! With pike it doesn’t surprise me though, cause they’ll actually cannibalize other pike

All predatory fish eat turtles this time of year. The turtles are slow moving, small, and easy to eat. As soon as the hatch starts the turtles will be on every fish’s menu. They retain a soft shell for a good month or two and are easy for predators to digest.

Not sure if the fish digest the hard shells or just pass them through, but I wouldnt want to experience the second option.

Quote:

---

Not sure if the fish digest the hard shells or just pass them through, but I wouldnt want to experience the second option.

---

OUCH!! That made my pucker a little

This isn’t no baby turtles I don’t know how this fish got this turtle in its mouth. I have pics if someone could tell me how to post them.

FFarm has a soft plastic that looks like a small turtle! I was curious why!

Hit reply, then go to manage photos, then click browse and upload them

Quote:

---

FFarm has a soft plastic that looks like a small turtle! I was curious why!

---

hmm..what hooks would you use for that plastic..wide hooks?

It doesn’t have a browse button on manage photos on my phone.

I bought some of those turtles at ff and used them today because I usually catch pike that eat turtles. Only caught a bass on it I used a 4/0 ewg worm hook was a little big 3/0 would be perfect.

Go to the website from your computer. Hook up your phone to your computer and download your photos directly from your phone

Pike are opportunity predators. Plain and simple. They will eat anything that has motion that seems edible (and some things that don’t have motion). They also have very wide jaws which will amaze you by what they fit into their mouth. I have seen pike attack not only turtles many times their size (too large to fit into those jaws) to ducks/geese/birds too large for themselves. They are opportunistic predators.

But why do I only see this on the river and this time of year, I have seen fish eat freshly hatched turtles but these are adults.

I imagine they don’t digest the shells jut like I imagine they don’t digest crayfish shells. They simply puke them out when done.

Quote:

---

It doesn’t have a browse button on manage photos on my phone.

---

you need to get the pics on your computer first.