Strange discoveries in bellies of beasts

The strange things that big critters eat can both intrigue and shock you.

Two California anglers got the surprise of their lives last week - and it wasn't from the giant fish they caught.

Fishing an inshore reef along the coast, Clancy Enlow, longtime pal, hooked and landed an 18-pound lingcod. Shortly later, his girlfriend, Cathleen Nicholl, hooked one as well, even bigger, and after she battled it - it surged off on several bulldog runs to the bottom of the ocean - the fish was brought to the boat: 27 1/2 pounds and nearly 5 feet long.

When they cleaned the fish, they found a 4-foot octopus arm in its stomach. "Bit clean off, just a few hours old, best we could tell," Clancy said.

Some of the best stories - and discoveries - in the outdoors about fish and wildlife can be determined from what you find in their stomachs.

For more than a century, researchers knew about the deep-water squid they estimated at 60 feet and 1,000 pounds from suction-cup marks found on sperm whales and squid body parts found in the whales' stomachs.

Those tales were confirmed five years ago when commercial fishermen snagged a squid off Antarctica that was longer than a school bus with eyes the size of bowling balls.

Not all such tales turn out to be true. As a boy, I remember the yarn of a whaler, James Bartley, who was reportedly thrown from his boat. A few days later, whalers were cutting up the blubber of the whale on the mother ship and found ol' James in the whale's stomach, still alive. He then provided a long, detailed account of the experience.

Many other yarns, however, are true. A game warden and crocodile hunter from South Africa, who pledged veracity to my dad and me, described an encounter.

"We got a report of a guy who got nabbed by a crocodile, so we went out after the croc," he said. "We got the crocodile all right. We opened him up to confirm it was the right croc. We found the guy inside, lying perfectly straight, up and down. But the thing that got us was that we found two other people in there right alongside of him."