FTR Visitor Pic – Two headed monster…. or trick?

This particular photo has been sent out to us by about a half dozen visitors in the last week so we figured we’d add it to the forum to see what everyone else thinks about this shot. Is it legit, or is it photoshop trickery?

One visitor stated in an e-mail…”This is an actual fish caught on the Ottertail River near Wahpeton, North

Dakota. It was authenticated by the Game and Fish Department in 2001.” We have no confirmation of this fact though.

Here’s the pic…

A thanks to ALL our visitors that sent this to us…LOL

If anyone else has a photo or two they’d like to share with us here at FTR, simply send the photo out as a .jpg attachment in an e-mail to [email protected] and we’ll gladly get that posted here just as quickly as we can.

Good fishin’,

EFN Webstaff

This photo has been around for about a month. Clearly a hoax. The fish on the left was stuffed up the gill plate of the fish on the right.

The fish has been caught in just about every lake and river in the midwest……

Interesting photo none the less…..

J.

Not legit from what I can see. The head of the larger pike lays in the correct position for a pike laying on the ground at that particular angle. That much is easy to see. The second, smaller pike, which is laying on its side, has its head “twisted” to align with the head of the first, larger, pike. Not possible. You’d pretty much have to twist the head of that smaller pike right of its spine to get it come to that position and leave the body laying on its side. And the body markings just behind the head, where the body begins, don’t match up.

Pretty fakey in my book. But interesting…

I seen this picture last year in a magazine. Dont remember wich one either In Fisherman. Fur Fish and Game or Sporst Afield. My thought was it is a fake the magazine said it was real.

Would the ND DNR have a record of the fish if it was verified? Seems to me it could be confirmed by some quick research but I’m still at work so someone else will have to jump on that assignment!

I dont know guys.. If its real or not… I’m a computer geek, and I can’t find anywhere that they digitally edited (doesnt mean they didn’t, just that I can’t find it). The ‘shoved under the gill plate’ doesnt work for me. As for the alignment, comon’ if it is real, would you expect it to make sense? I’m usually pretty skeptical, but I’m leaning towards real on this one. Thats my .02

-John

I’m operating under the “couldn’t be real” mindset and the alignment theory allows my brain to understand how one might have constructed that image using photoshop….. which I could do with the original photos of two similar pike, a couple snap shots, and 20 minutes with my copy of photoshop. Lickety splat.

Besides, ma nature is a cruel mistress. That critter couldn’t possibly have been an efficient predator and would have starved in no time.

If its real, I’d love to see proof. I’m quite the sceptic at this point.

To me, if its real, the real questions is if that fish would count as one or two pike towards a daily limit…LOL

Gotta’ love the interent!

This back from the ND DNR…. about 10 minutes after I e-mailed them!

There is absolutely no truth to our verifying this fish. We actually received the same photo about a year ago and at the time were told it originated from the southeastern US. We have not seen the fish nor have we been contacted to verify same. The picture looks pretty good but with today’s computer technology it’s very easy to ‘morph’ pictures such as this. If you view the picture with a scientific eye the ‘straight’ pike looks to be in very good shape with the smaller pike not much worse. A anomaly such as this in nature would likely not survive long let alone be in such good shape. How would it forage efficiently?

Until we actually view the fish we are considering it a hoax and a fake.

Terry Steinwand,

Chief – Fisheries Division

Give a whole new meaning to “Head on Collision” Huh!

KUDOS TO JAMES!!!! Nothing like a little research on the good-old world-wide-web to disspell the work of a prankster.

Good on ya!

Mark

saw the photo last year and the biologist said the same thing…one of those fish would have died from malnutrtion or etc. Nice work , but yet your stoill BUSTED!! Thats one thing the technology of today hsa done too us all..made us all skeptics of everything.

If this, I mean these fish were caught on the Ottertail River, they were caught in MN as no part of the Ottertail, is in ND.

I believe a fisherman took a picture of his catch and when he got the picture back it looked like it was a two-headed fish.

If you look close at the picture you can see the gill plate of the bigger fish. The smaller fish was put on the stringer first and when the angler caught the second fish it too was slid on the stringer. If you look how this fish is on the stringer, it gives it all away. The stringer is just going into the mouth of this fish, as it is attached to the first caught.

The stringer tells us all that this is just a picture of two Northerns.

Dennis Flom

you know i looked at this b efore and kind of couldn’t really tell a differencer but now that you explained it like that it clears it up pretty darn good. I think I will go with you on this one. How could you come up with this???????? Have some experience in the fraud line of work?????? jk

No I do not have any experience in fraud, but if you think I would be good at it ………… you never know!

Hey James!,

Are you sure that response was from the ND DNR?

And—And, are you sure you’re really James?!!!!!!!!

LOL

Just trying to take away some of my embarrasment since I was one of those who sent in that picture.

Silly meeee

Mac’s Twin Bay on Mille Lacs had a mounted female walleye in the 9 pound range, mounted with a 2.5 pound male that swam up her gil plate. Both fish had drown, and floated up on Mac’s beach. I have not seen the mount in there lately though. It seems that cig smoke, etc. has taken it’s toll.

Tuck

I wish this picture would go away! It is clearly two fish on a stringer, but the head of the smaller one is inside the gill plate of the larger one. The photo has not been altered at all, it’s just the way the fish are lying there that makes it look the way it does. Can we please move on?

Little Boy Campground on Little Boy Lake near Longville at one time had (and may still have, haven’t been there for 20+ years)a 30# class musky with a 5or 6 # northern coming out of its gill plate. Some early morning fisherman found them floating along the shore. Both were drowned also.