What Jeff Marschuetz found inside a catfish he caught back in 2009 will make anyone who’s ever thought about noodling take a step back and reconsider their desire to live. No, this has nothing to do with a giant catfish that had eaten something human size and will make us all fear for our safety in freshwater from this day on. It tuns out the catfish had eaten a massive meal of a mother water moccasin and several of babies – whether they were hers or not is unclear.
Marschuetz noticed the catfish was about ready to burst its stomach was so full when he reeled it in, and since he planned on eating it, he cut it open to see what was inside.
“Luckily enough for us they were dead,” says Jeff about his potentially deadly catfish.
It’s not clear if the catfish ate the snakes over a period of time or if the water moccasin gave birth inside the stomach of the fish after it had devoured it. Either way, it sounds like there’s a good chance the catfish swam around with some very alive and very poisonous snaked in its stomach for an uncertain period of time.
Jeff enjoy cutting fish open and studying what’s in their stomachs because it gives him insight into what the fish like. In turn, it gives him the ability to make lures that share similar characteristics to whatever it is the fish he’s going after likes to eat.
