When you go ice fishing, odds are high you'll catch something bizarre.
That's what happened to siblings Alex and Anton Babich of northern Indiana. In January, these two brothers went ice fishing on Lake Wawasee and spotted an incredible object: a frozen pike fish swallowing a bass.
Anton captured a photo of the fish and made a Facebook about it, where it garnered more than 15,800 shares, 4,500 likes, and 2,300 comments.
"Out ice fishing in the rain and saw something you don't see every day," Anton posted. According to his estimations, the bass could have been about 14 inches long - twice the size of the pike fish.
Is The Photo Fake?
Although the photo went viral, some people questioned its authenticity. Because of this, Anton and Alex set out to dig the frozen fish out of the ice and take a video as evidence.
"We decided to go back to the channel where we saw this," the brothers told The Telegraph.
How Did It Happen?
The incredible photo has left people on the internet baffled as to how it must have happened.
Alex thinks that a fisherman must have caught the bass but because it was too big to keep, he released it. The bass died and floated under the ice. A pike fish must have seen the dead bass and tried to eat it, but it choked because of the bass's size and died, too.
He thinks that once both fish were dead, they floated under the surface of the lake, which froze into a thick layer of ice and trapped the animals.
"The timing had to be perfect, and no snow to cover this up," he told Global News.
Several theories that attempt to explain the photo also emerged on Reddit.
"The pike tried to eat a bass that was too big and it died," Reddit user Shramzoozle said. "They floated to the water's surface and froze."
Another Reddit user said they've been fishing a lot of times before and have seen several dead pike fish that swallowed a fish bigger than them. The user said pike fish are typically greedy feeders and super aggressive.
This is not the first time a smaller creature tried to eat something bigger than them. In January, a tarantula was spotted eating an Almaden ground snake that was bigger than the spider.
"They eat pretty much anything they can grab and overpower," said tarantula expert Chris Hamilton.
Meanwhile, what do you think happened to the pike fish and bass? Answer us in the comments below.
