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Do TROUT eat salamanders?
Do Tout eat tadpoles?
Can anyone identify a salamander that has a rather dark back and a burnt orange belly and thorax…about 4 to 6 inches?
Duckster - I have seen the species you are referring to once on a lake in S.E. Alaska. It was about 7 inches long as I recall. Match’s your description. I don’t recall a fishing lure company ever making an imitation Salamander/Newt lure. If the fish ate salamanders, I am sure a lure manufacteur would make one. Get them while their hot! The Lure Jenson Newt Spoon! Most salamanders do not have lungs or gills. They breath through their skin, hence they must always be in a moist or wet envirement. Stick with flies, we know they work. Good luck, Jonezee
ducksterman
A quick review of variousl online catalogs will show numerous plastic baits that imitate salamanders. I would guess that tadpoles and salamanders would be quite well digested by trout that ran across them while feeding. After all, its a great source of protein, just like crawdads.
That being said, the next question would be, what pattern to give the impression of them? I expect that one would end up with something fairly large and gnarly depending upon the size of the tadpoles/salamanders in the area being fished?
Jonzee was pretty close to the point in that it might take some research to determine what worked. Are they in your native waters or in a place where you are headed to fish?
Ducksterman, sounds like what you were seeing were rough-skinned newts, quite common here in Oregon. When I was over on the Trask a couple months ago, I saw TONS of them in the calm pools, and I saw a bunch of tadpoles in the puddles around the rivers edge. As far as wether or not trout eat them, couldn’t say for sure. I do know that they have skin secretions that make them poisonous to other animals (like us), but I don’t know if they’re poisonous to fish. Hope this helps.
Regards,
Joe Martin
Salem, OR
Hi Folks,
When we built and stocked our pond, we were advised by the hatchery to include frogs as well as minnows and freshwater clams which would reproduce each spring and summer and provide natural food sources for the stocked fish as well as help maintain the quality of the pond water. I don’t know for sure if these are food items for trout but for sure the bass, yellow perch and blugills feed on them. When we were constructing the pond, we were overjoyed to find salamanders occuring naturally in our spring which feeds the pond. I am told that this is an indicator that the water is of good quality and in some states (WVa in our case) certain species of the slalmander are protected. Hope this answers your question.
BTW, I have seen soft plastic imitations of salamanders in the stores and catalogs and I believe a few years back on another website, I saw a fly tied by someone that was a salamander. I believe he had incorporated a portion of the jelly type lure used by the “others.”
As someone pointed out, in Oregon those would be Rough Skin Newts. They have poisen about the equivelent of Puffer Fish. (but only if you eat them). So about nothing eats them. (Its been 12 years since my Herpetology classes at Southern Oregon State but I think there may be a snake that can eat them.) Don’t panic I grew up playing with those things and only have mild memory loss to show for it. or could that be age comming on. :?
Eric
Sounds like the thingys we called “water-dogs”. L. Lenore, in Wa, was loaded with’em until Lahontons were introduce into the lake. Those big old cutts made short work of that food source.
…lee s.
OK probably too much information but… I actualy know somthing on this topic and that is rare here. I looked it up. The poisen is identical to some Puffer fish toxins, (tetrodotoxin)
The common garter snake can eat them, and they are canabilistic eating eggs and larvae. Dead Ducks, Bull Frogs and Fish have been found with these in their stomach, and I recall a lecture of a scientist force feeding one of these to a bass and having the bass die and the newt crawling back out.
My crowning acheavment in College was taking the same class (Wildlife Biology) 4 times and geting credit for it 4 times. I loved that class.
Eric
Before I posted I googled and got the impresson what I am seeing are not newts…but salamanders…I’m not sure…these thing come vertically to the surface gulp some air and go back down…if the fish wanted them they sure would be available…they look like they have smooth skin.
Yes this is in a local water that is populated with rainbows 19 to 21"…but I’m not seeing any evidence of the fish eatting them…I think they would be very easy to imitate with a large woolly bugger tied with dark on top and burnt orange under…
Don’t you suppose those lures that we see are for bass, etc.