What are they eaten...and when??

[steve schmidt]

I was fishing today on a northwestern Wisconsin lake and caught several very nice gills....10 ounces on up! When I cleaned em I checked about 5 of the largest to see what they were eating....every single fish had an empty stomach!!! I mean empty. They were not aggressive biters either. So what do you make of that?

[protrapper]

Steve I would have too say the panfish are eating what I like too call ice lice, witch are just zoo plankton. I think that with the below normal snow cover the plankton are staying deep or near the bottom, because light is getting down there, and they are attracted too light. I have noticed on years in balsam when fishing in my fish trap with my latern next to the hole that the plankton would rise up to the top of my hole attracted to the light. But this year i have not seen much for them, usally they were thick in the hole, and all the panfish i would clean had plankton in there stomach. Just my thoughts.

[steve schmidt]

Thanks Protrapper.

I was talking to my brother in law tonite about this. His simple answer was that maybe they just haven't been feeding for the last few days. Normally you cut open their stomach and black bugs etc are in there. Oh well, tricked enough to hit my number 10 jig.

[windycity]

Steve Schmidt, is this the Steve Schmidt who worked for Harza Engineering in Marinette County, WI back in 1994?? Probably alot of Steve Schmidt's in this world, but was just wondering......

[steve schmidt]

NO...different Steve Schmidt