Over-Ambitious Pike Swallows a Fish Nearly its Own Size With Fatal Results
OutdoorHub Reporters 01.15.13
Pikes are known to be undiscriminating eaters, swallowing practically anything they can get their mouths around. While this unlucky pike could fit its mouth around a zander (larger cousin of the perch), it simply didn’t have enough space for the smaller fish in its body and it ended the life of both prized catches.
René Spaargaren, a resident of Almere near Amsterdam, pulled the two dead fish, still locked together, out from water near his home. Spaargaren told his story and gave the photos to Dutch conservation news website Natuurbericht. Since then, numerous websites, including the BBC, Huffington Post and more have picked up on the unusual story.
The photos sparked a debate on what could have possessed the pike to attempt to swallow a fish of that size among the angling community. British angling expert Charles Jardine narrowed it down to gluttony in an interview with the BBC.
Before he threw the two dead-locked fish back in the water, Spaargaren measured the pike to be around 3.2 feet, while he estimated the zander to be about 2 feet 5 inches. Together, they weighed about 33 pounds. No doubt, the zander was decidedly too big to be viable prey for the pike.
