I was fishing with some friends over the weekend on a small mountain lake in western Montana. The ice has just come off, in fact there was still quite a bit of ice on half of the lake and around the edges. There were some midges hatching, and the fish weren’t the least bit picky. We caught trout after trout, mostly with dries, and decided to keep a few to cook up that night. We kept 6 cutthroat, and when we cleaned them we found something we’d never seen before - salamanders in the stomaches! 3 fish (each about 14 inches) had a salamander in the stomach, and 1 fish (a 17 incher) had eaten 2 salamanders. We didn’t even know there were salamanders in this lake, and definitely didn’t expect them to be a significant food source since the fish are so easy to catch.
Has anyone had any experience with trout that feed on salamanders? What about any salamander patterns? I’m wondering if there are some really large trout in this lake that may feed exclusively on them so I would like to give it a try. I don’t even know where to find salamanders in a lake…I’m assuming not in deep water, but near the banks or maybe the ice edges?
Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts or suggestions, please let me know! And if you know of any salamander patterns I’d appreciate it.
As far as I know, all fish eat salamanders, more or less. I believe that they hibernate or bury themselves for the winter. Perhaps what you witnessed was them coming out for the summer type thing. I would imagine that in general, they are a if its there and presents itself, it’ll get eate type thing, but during periods of concentrated activity, like a migration or some thing akin to it,that they could become a food source that is looked for. Just my opinion. As far as a salamander pattern, I’ve never seen one. If it doesn’t ruffle your feathers, try getting some of the small soft plastic ones that the bass guys use with spinning or casting gear. They just might work.
Never knew much about salamanders, and still don’t. But your post motivated me to google salamander. Sounds like you may have hit a salamander “emergence.” From several articles found on the web, it is evident that salamanders, as adults, lay their eggs in the water. The eggs go to a larva stage, and the pictures / drawings of that stage resemble a tadpole. The next stage involves growing legs, and finally the salamander “emerges” with air breathing lungs and legs to live out their adult stage on terra firma, near water or in a swampy or damp earth setting.
So it seems you likely caught fish that were opportunistic in eating some egg laying adults or some advanced larva that had not yet made land. ( Your description makes it sound like the former ?? but it seems more likely that it was the latter !! ) In any event, it doesn’t seem likely that salamanders are a year round food source to the fish, nor that larger fish in the lake could feed / survive exclusively on them.
From the illustrations of the various stages of salamander growth, it seems an appropriately colored and sized wooly bugger might do the trick, or a pine squirrel or rabbit fly tied in a “tadploe” look - slim and very flexible tail with a bulkier front end, not all that dissimilar to a sculpin ?? I’d try fishing it close to the bottom with a slower retrieve during the emergence.
Now just watch someone who knows what they are talking about come in and rip the above ( and appropriately so ).
With run off pretty much limiting fishing around here, decided to do a little more research on the salamander question. Some of what I said in the previous post holds, but as usual, things are a bit more complicated than that.
I did find an article which closely relates to your question. It is a very recent article ( last Friday 5-30-08 ) on the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks website that describes and discusses in a rather limited way, the Montana Long-toed Salamander. That is most likely, from the various articles I’ve read, the one you found in the trout you caught. There are a couple other possibilities, including the Idaho Salamander ( wonder if they need a nonresident license to fish up there ?? ).
Google “Montana Long-toed Salamander” and the first site up with be the Mt FWP site with a direct channel to the article.
Didn’t find enough information to be definitive about whether these critters would be available to trout year round in some stage of their larval stage, although some salamanders do live in the water in a larval stage and through metamorphosis to the land dwelling stage up to a couple years. The article rather confuses the issue by indicating the larva-to-adult process takes 3-24 months !!
You might try calling the woman at MT FWP who wrote the article for more information.
Good luck - and thanks for your post and raising the question.
John
P.S. I’d be very interested in any additional information you develop and / or any results you have trying to fish a salamander pattern ( whatever that would look like ).
Long toed salamanders are a “species of concern” up here… not as many around.
Trout stocked into mountain lakes have been known to eat enough salamanders as to wipe them out completely… its become such a problem that there are people trying to get rid of trout in some mountain lakes. USGS Studies on salamanders and trout
Where we have noticeable populations of tiger salamander here, we do not have fish, and vice versa. The salamander larvae when they turn into adults are pretty large, and are agressive predators, so any smaller fish would be toast. On the other hand, little larval salamanders would make great meals for a hungry spring trout.
Thanks everyone for the responses. John, strange - that article was posted on the very day (5-30) we were catching these fish! You are correct - and the picture in the article pharper posted confirms it - the salamanders in the lake we were at are definitely the Montana long-toed guys.
Anyway, thanks for looking into this everyone. I’m hopefully going back to the lake on Friday and if I have time this week I’ll try to get a little creative at the vice and see what I come up with. I’ll let you know if there any new developments…
From the images in the link pharper posted, I’d consider a weighted, rubber legged medium olive over white or light gray double bunny with some red crystal flash on each side for a pattern. Heavy duty rubber legs fore and aft, maybe a couple strands at each location.
Let us know how you do. If nothing else, I hope you can get and post a photo of one of those 17" cutthroats, whatever they eat !!