Pike Dies After Apparently Chomping Down On More Than It Could Chew

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MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Julie Collman has fished on Saganaga Lake for more than 20 years, and she's seen a lot of strange things on the water. But last Friday, she says she saw the most unusual thing "as far as fish go."

While boating down the Sag Corridor with her daughter, Jessica Berg-Collman, and a friend, Collman said she saw a 37-inch-long northern pike dead in the water with a red sucker lodged head-first in its mouth.

"So we pull up alongside of it, and I grab the tail…and we saw that big sucker hanging out of his mouth," she said.

The pike had apparently made a fatal mistake in trying to gobble up the 3-pound sucker.

Collman said she tried to revive the pike, but she couldn't separate the two. The sucker's head, she said, was in the pike's stomach, and a third of its body was sticking out from the pike's jaws.

For a moment, Collman was stuck trying to figure out what to do with the two fish. Then she got an idea.

Now the fish are in her freezer in Grand Marais. She intends to keep the two together, mounted just as they were found.

"It will be a good conversation starter," Collman said.