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| Ever had a muskie follow a lure to the boat, stick it's head out of the water, and look at the boat/them? I have been fishing these things for over 30 years, and that is a new one for me, never happened in all that time.
Anyone?[:0] |
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| I've stuck my head in the water + looked at the structure/fish, but never had it done back![;)] off to work.....
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| Never had one do that bit have had a few flip me the FIN
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| Hey Steve,
I never had a muskie do that to me, but I've seen gar on White Clay lake porpoise up and take a look around and then swim back down. The ugly sucker was probably just gulping some air for its swim bladder, but it was the craziest thang I ever did see.
catch ya later,
Krappie |
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| Yes, I've had it happen several times. Once we where fishing a large weed bed. One of my clients was throwing a spinner bait and not paying too much attention and just pulled the lure out of the water. Just then a very large fish (must have been nearly a 50"er) comes zooming up and stops at boat side. She turns sideways and swims along side the boat for a few feet. Then she raises her head out of the water at about a 45 degree angle about up to the end of her gill flaps, and somehow holds her whole head out for four or five seconds, which seemed like hours. The whole time she had her head out of the water, you could see her eyeballs moving back and forth, like she was either looking for the missing lure, or reading the boat numbers, or checking out my ugly face, or who knows what. This was all done close enough to the boat that I think I could have hit her with my rod tip. She finely decided that we weren't good to eat and slowly paddled off, never to be seen again.
Another time (I was fishing with Doug Stange, and he writes about this at times), we had a fish follow (45"er or so) and then dissapear, only to reappear a little way away with it's head out of the water, kind of looking us over, and then swimming with it's head out for some distance. Then to add insult to injury about every ten casts or so the thing would reapear and do the same thing, first on one side of the boat and then on the other. Must have came up with it's head out four or five times. Never saw this fish again either.
I've had a few others do the same type of thing, but not to the extent that these fish did.
This doesn't happen very often, this represents almost 35 years of fishing the LOTWs. I guess if you fish long enough you will see them do all kinds of great and wonderful things.
Doug Johnson
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| Can not say I have had them stick their head out and look at my ugly mug, but I have been followed by them (no I am not paranoid). A couple times I have been going along casting to only look down below the trolling motor and see a muskie following. It was like they were attracted to the motor. Ran my bait by both times until I chased them away.
DLS |
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| I will try to get on the chat as well tonight. Shows what kind of life I have. Message board.....Chat....Message Board....Chat....Message Board....Oh you get the idea. Hard water sucks..........[:(] [:((]
Let Em Go...Let EM Grow.....Mike |
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| oops replied to the wrong post, how stupid is that! |
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| Two times. One just seemed to look at boat.
The other was very active and came up about 10-15 feet away after following in a fouled bait. This fish was caught on the next cast. |
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| Be careful guys. Those fish work for the DNR and you are being checked out. They are specially trained fish to detect violators.[;)]
I have seen musky swimming with thier heads out of the water. All were hybrid tigers. I was fishing a lake this spring which was gin clear at the time and had a couple dozen follows and quite a few stopped and faced me looking right at me and not the lure. It was quite odd indeed. |
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| Well, then...
Do you think the muskies were looking at you in recognition, and know what you are?
As in, "Oh, a Fisherman!" " Must be a LURE I followed, must leave now!"
Never EVER have I had a muskie swim up, stick it''s head out of the water and "look at me". I am truly looking forward to seeing that.
Sorry, but whatever this behavior is, I do NOT think it is any sign of intelligence, conditioning, or any other ''anthropomorphing''assumption. If the fish was intelligent enough to recognize a boat, angler, or lure as what it actually is, we would NEVER catch one. Would you eat a Big Mack that crashed through your roof as a space ship hovered in plain sight in the front yard, and spun across the floor with hooks hanging out of it, returning to the ship to be again tossed into the house as a ''feeding''temptation?
This is a classic example of Waves On the Water Make the Wind Blow thinking. (Same with the assumption many years ago that the X15 Lowrance spooked the fish with it''s powerful signal because it showed the fish flaring from the boat as it passes over. In actual fact, the X15 was the first sonar capable of showing the behavior, which occurs whether one has a sonar on or not.)
How about you guys, what do you think? |
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| I don't think the fish was thinking that it was looking at a fisherman but I do think it was looking at something in it's territory. Like I said, this water was ultra clear and I am sure the fish reacted to my movement in the boat, which I am sure it saw quite well.[:)] |
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| Simple reaction to a series of stimuli? Basically looking at the boat because it is there...makes sense.[:bigsmile:] |
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| By the way, I am not talking about a fish that follows and has it''s head/back/body partially out of the water as it follows a topwater, or similar bait. I am referring to the type of behavior Doug saw on the LOTW a couple times. Very strange...[:0] |
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| I never had that happen to me but I did have this happen to me twice: a pike that had the lure n its mouth crossway and just swam to the boat (no resistance). When it saw me, it just opened its mouth an the lure floated out. Now that's frustrating![:blackeye:] |
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| Steve did he have a voice that sounded like Don Knotts,,,,Ithink it was the incredible Mr Limpit |
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| That's how I met me wife.... she swam up along side the skiff + our eyes met.....as she turned I threw the net w/ a mighty heave.....2 months + 4 operations later she went from mermaid to Mrs. Sponge! Still have her flippers......[:0] [:sun:] |
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| I wonder what Walking Eagle would say about this????
I've seen two fish do this but not after following. But very near the boat.
Maybe it's a cancer?
Or it could be the leader of the "Wolf Pack" of muskies cruising?
Just a few thoughts....
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| Your title says it all... "Anyone out there"
That is exactly what I would say to myself is I saw a muskie stick his head out of the water..I have seen them look at me,, but a foot under the water and that was just because I moved and their stimulas stopped them from chasing my bait anymore. When we move.. the shape and shadow changes the whole situation, thats for sure.
How far can they stick there head out.. a foot, six inches.. can there swim blader help them even perform such a thing.. is what I am wondering.
Muskies are wierd.. thats for sure.[;)] [:bigsmile:] |
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| Zig Zag, Steve, Zig Zag...spooky, man![:bigsmile:] |
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| Never a Musky Steve but I had a big Pike do it to me on my last guide trip this past fall.
Had the bobber start acting a little strange (not like a muskie had it but strange) so I grabbed the rod, tightend the line a little and felt some weight. I handed the rod to my client and told him to start to bring it up slowly as I positioned the boat for a good hookset angle.
Crazy pike comes out of the water back to just behind the gills with the sucker sideways in its mouth shaking its head like "Jaws". I told the client if he wanted it to either set the hook or shake it off. He decides to shake it off and when it let the sucker go the goofy thing stayed out of the water for about 4-5 seconds seemingly to just look at us.
Now I know I'm not that interesting...especially from a visual standpoint...[:bigsmile:] Beats the heck out of me what it was doing.
Mark |
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Posts: 513
| Yes. Had a fish circle the boat last year. The water was a bit ruddy and about 10-15 yards it would stick its head out of the water and slap the water a bit with its snout and go back under. It completed almost a complete circle keeping about 10-15 yards from the boat. Of course, like a fool, I was throwing various baits out in front of where I figured it'd be swimming in the hopes that I could catch it. I didn't.
I had a pickerel do exactly what your describing once while I was fishing pike. It had followed a bait back in ruddy, run-off water on to stick its head out at boatside and slap the surface. I had read somewhere that such behavior is a show of dominance. It found out on my next cast that it wasn't that dominant  |
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| You don't have to worry until they start talking to you. |
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Posts: 222
Location: c.wis | ive seen this alot this year alone, ive seen it where there is alot of pressure- about the third lure they see? they stick theyre head up to see whats up? years past aswell, again in pressured areas |
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Posts: 32930
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | A thread from 11 years ago..... |
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Posts: 8831
| sworrall - 7/24/2012 1:19 PM
A thread from 11 years ago.....
All that changes are the names... |
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| I'm sure people have looked at you strangely so why not muskies?  |
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| Yes, 10 years ago. I was throwing a bucktail and had a muskie follow but then stop. The fish slowly rose up to the surface, stuck its head out of the water and looked me straight in the eye. Gave me a "what are you doing here" look Appeared to be a hybrid, well marked around 36". Weird deal. |
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| 30+ years ago, I was just starting Musky fishing, I was on Lac Vieux Desert, and had a nice fish follow a blade bait to the boat. I panicked, and started to reel faster and the Musky missed the lure, and ran into the side of the boat! What a loud noise! I think it scared both of us, but she got away. I wish I had known about the figure 8 then?? |
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Posts: 209
| One of the first follows I ever had way early on did that to me. It came up really slowly onto my bucktail and then just swam alongside of it and poked its head up and looked at me. Cool stuff. |
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Location: Des Moines IA | I was night fishing one night, pulling in a top raider, did a L at the boat, and next thing I know there's a SOLID "thump", then a splash at the side of my tin 14 footer, fish ran right in to the boat, then took off like a bat out of H E double hockey sticks, #*^@ near gave me a heart attack. |
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Posts: 1360
Location: Lake "y" cause lake"x" got over fished | MuskieMike - 8/10/2012 12:43 PM
I was night fishing one night, pulling in a top raider, did a L at the boat, and next thing I know there's a SOLID "thump", then a splash at the side of my tin 14 footer, fish ran right in to the boat, then took off like a bat out of H E double hockey sticks, #*^@ near gave me a heart attack.
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I was going to make a comment about how the fish must be some what intelligent as they know enough to look outside of water to see whats going on, knowing that under the water we look distorted... Then I read this post and thought... yeah maybe not that smart... lol |
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Anyone out there