Nothing fishy about the seasonal diet of Okanagan Lake trout
A fisherman on Okanagan Lake caught a great shot of the stomach contents of one of the many fish he bagged during a day on the boat.
In just two hours, Dean Luckhardt and his fishing pal pulled in six rainbow trout with one sizable catch weighing in around seven pounds.
"The stomach had been completely full of black flying ants...I found two handfuls of ants in the stomach, two completely full handfuls," he told Chris Walker, host of CBC's Daybreak South.
Luckhardt thinks the rising lake waters may have flooded logs and trees, thus washing the ants into the lake.
Okanagan Lake reached 343.06 metres as at Sunday morning, exceeding levels reached during the 1948 floods, according to the Central Okanagan Emergency Operations Centre.
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The opportunistic fish are famous for their aggressive surface feeding behavior, which draws fishers to lakes and streams.
Retired entomologist Hugh Phillip said it's possible ant colonies along the shores of Okanagan lake have been disturbed by the lake's rising water but he has his own theory as to how so many ended up in the belly of the fish.
He said there's a chance the flying ants were knocked into the lake by a gust of wind while mating in the air.
Phillip pointed out during any given season fish will eat whatever hatches in a lake or lands on the surface of the water.
"I would suspect that anything floating on the surface that wiggles is probably on their menu," he said.
Last Wednesday, Luckhardt posted the image of the ants on the homepage of the Okanagan Valley Fishing Facebook group.
Other fishers from the region chimed in with their own experiences and, of course, some advice.
"The black ant (Carpenter ant) is a fantastic trout slaying fly. Easy to tie too!" read one post.
With files from CBC Radio One's Daybreak South
