Ya Never Know What Kind of Surprise May Linger Yonder in the Livewell

Some folks just prefer a little privacy when the urge strikes,
no matter where they are.

Read here recently about a fella who had taken his young son out for a day of fishin' on his bass boat. As you should expect, the young 'un eventually needed to pee. When he asked Dad what he should do, Dad simply told him to use the one livewell. The young boy did as he was told...that time and thereafter, too, throughout the day.

What Dad didn't realize until they returned home, and he was cleaning out the livewell, is that on one occasion, his son had done more than No. 1. Dad was a might put out but, at the same time, grateful that he hadn't forgotten to empty and clean the livewell before putting his boat away.

That kind of surprise, however, is a mere fraction of what people sometimes find in their boat's livewells. No one probably has a better feel for this topic than a fisheries biologist, and the one involved here has been in the business for more than four decades.

Don Lusk was only 14 years old when he already knew he wanted to make a living messing with fish. That was the same year he saw his first weird thing in the belly of a channel catfish. At the time, he was spending a summer weekend on the Brazos River, between Granbury and Glen Rose, Texas. The river began to rise, and the current soon became pretty swift. Having captured some big yellow grasshoppers in a coffee can by flashlight, he threaded one on a big hook with a heavy weight, pushed the button on his Zebco 33, and lobbed a long cast into the river, which immediately took it downstream and deposited his offering about 2 feet from the bank.

It was getting late, so Lusk did what most 14-year-old boys probably would have done. He laid a concrete block on top of his rod handle and tied the rod to a willow limb and hit the sack.

The next morning, when he went to check his rod, it wasn't under the block anymore. It was in the river. He grabbed the cord, retrieved the soaking-wet rod, and saw the line way out in the middle of the river. His heart pounded as he started reeling. Whatever was way out there on the business end wasn't quite ready to give up. After a few minutes of fighting both the fish and the current, though, he was the proud recipient of a nice-sized catfish, weighing 4 pounds, 10 ounces.

Lusk and his dad hung that catfish on a nail in a tree and cleaned it. At that young age, he already was fascinated with what fish ate, but he was especially surprised to find a pocket gopher in this channel cat's belly.

Lusk also remembers electrofishing a lake in upstate New York with several fisheries students. They were dealing with mostly 12-13-inch-long bass, but one had a pooched-out belly. When Lusk looked down its gullet, he saw two little black feathers, so he gave the belly a squeeze, and a drowned barn swallow popped out.

And way back when, Lusk also went frog gigging around one of his hatchery ponds. He caught two dozen bullfrogs, cleaned them, and planned to eat frog legs that night. Being that biologist-guy, though, he took note of what was in all of their bellies: mostly crawfish and coppernosed bluegill fingerlings. One, however, had a rock-hard lump in its belly, which turned out to be a newly hatched turtle. Still alive, the amphibian quickly flipped over and tried to run away, but he kept it and gave it to his little niece, who named the turtle Jonah.

Another time, while electrofishing a small pond about 50 miles from his home base, Lusk had collected the typical stuff when he came upon a rather plump bass. Opening its mouth, he stuck his thumb inside to take a look and immediately dropped it. The netter on the front of the boat started asking him why he'd done that. Turns out, the bass just had swallowed a 14-inch diamond-back water snake, and its head was sticking out the fish's throat...still alive.

Lusk also has seen 3-inch bass try to swallow a 2-inch bass, and both of them perished. Predator fish will eat pretty much everything, plus lots of stuff you don't even think about. If it moves and fits into its mouth, a largemouth bass will try to eat it.

In addition to seeing remnants of crawfish, he once found a 5-pound bass that had tried to swallow a 12-inch gizzard shad (see photo right).

He's also seen a cottomouth water moccasin coughed up in a livewell (see photo left), courtesy of a 6-pound bass.

Said Lusk, "Just because we work hard to grow a good food chain to support our fish, they'll take the opportunities that avail themselves. If you have an ounce of biologist in you, pay attention to what your fish are eating when you catch one."

You might be surprised at what you find in the bottom of your livewells. Wayne and I certainly were this past Saturday.