Northern Minnesota: 37-inch pike found dead with 3-pound sucker ...

Jessica Berg-Collman and Mark Welinski are pictured with their amazing find last week in northeastern Minnesota. Berg-Collman; her mother, Julie Collman, of Grand Marais; and Welinski of Duluth were returning from fishing on Saganaga Lake on June 28 when they discovered a 37-inch northern pike that had apparently died while trying to swallow a 3-pound sucker headfirst. (AP Photo/Julie Collman)

As Julie Collman tells it, this northern pike literally bit off more than it could chew.

Collman, of Grand Marais, was returning from fishing on Saganaga Lake with her daughter, Jessica Berg-Collman, and friend Mark Welinski of Duluth last Friday.

They were motoring down the Sag Corridor toward the public landing when Collman saw a gull on the water -- and something else.

"I saw some fins sticking up," said Collman, who's been fishing Saganaga since 1991. "Out of curiosity, I slowed down, turned around and went to look. What we saw was mind-boggling."

What they saw was a 37-inch-long northern pike lying dead in the water with about a 3-pound sucker stuck headfirst in its jaws. The pike apparently had choked while trying to ingest the fish.

"I was like, 'Holy cow!' " Collman said.

She pulled the northern pike into the boat and measured it. Only the back third of the sucker was protruding from the jaws of the pike. The head had already entered the pike's stomach. It wasn't clear whether the sucker had been alive when the northern tried to eat it, Collman said.

"I couldn't pull it out or push it in," Collman said.

Collman has the two fish -- the sucker still stuck in the pike -- in her freezer, she said. She plans to have the pair mounted as they were found.

Source: http://www.twincities.com/minnesota/ci_23606962/northern-minnesota-37-inch-pike-found-dead-3

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