Do trout eat suckers, sunfish or dead fish?
Suckers and dead fish, in specific situations; sunfish, essentially never. Lake trout: in northern lakes short of ciscoes, young suckers are part of an almost purely fish diet, and lakers are willing scavengers — a dead cisco, smelt or piece of sucker resting on bottom is a classic set-line bait under the ice, where regulations allow it. Stream trout meet suckers differently: when suckers run up tributaries to spawn in spring, rainbows and brook trout line up below them for drifting eggs and later pick off the fry, a quieter cousin of the salmon egg bite. Stream trout seldom touch dead fish. Sunfish are warm, weedy-water animals, and trout are cold-water fish; the two rarely share water, so a bluegill is not a meaningful trout food.
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More questions about Diet
Same topic, other species
- What do crappie NOT eat? — Crappie
- Will largemouth pick up dead or motionless bait? — Largemouth Bass
- What do muskie eat in southern reservoirs that have no ciscoes or perch? — Muskellunge (Muskie)
- Why is a piece of worm such a reliable perch bait — do perch eat worms and leeches naturally? — Yellow Perch
- Do pike ever eat insects, leeches and other invertebrates? — Northern Pike
- What do smallmouth eat in winter? — Smallmouth Bass
- Do walleye eat bluegills, frogs — or their own young? — Walleye