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Posts: 101
Location: Northern Illinois | You may think I'm crazy, but on more than one occasion on two seperate Lakes in WI, I have witnessed the following behaviour. Muskies that allign them selves vertically in the water with their heads sticking out of the water. They maintain that position for a few seconds, then disappear below the surface. I don't know why they do it, and would like to know if anyone else has observed this. |
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Posts: 2384
Location: On the X that marks the mucky spot | Was it a tiger? I've heard plenty of stories of tigers doing this. |
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Posts: 105
| i have seen this a few times... i have seen one swim around with his head out of the water like that for a couple of minutes, just going around and around...weird isnt it. i have heard that this is a way they get rid of parasites or the water lacks enough oxygen...all kinds of things. i have talked to a few people who have seen it, i think its one of those behaviors that is normal to them, but odd as hell to us. |
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| theys laughin at you renaldo |
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Posts: 412
Location: Waukesha, WI | bigbrit - 2/1/2007 11:01 AM
i have seen one swim around with his head out of the water like that for a couple of minutes, just going around and around...weird isnt it.
I saw this in Vilas County last year. It was on the surface on the outside edge of a weed bed swimming along with its yap open. |
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| I have fished with Bill Lindner... He calls them Peekers... On Tonka they do that just to see if Treats is out Harrasing them...They can't tell by hull design..Treats sometimes fishes with other anglers....Don't break the toy..Old Goat |
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Posts: 136
| This happened to a friend of mine. A nice fish stared him down for about ten seconds. Wierd |
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Posts: 374
Location: Bemidji | Hulcano and I witnessed this on two seperate occassions on a northern MN lake. |
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Posts: 434
Location: searchin for 50 | I have seen them do it too, on Eagle Lake in vermilion bay and N.Wis. on sisa bagama. Actually caught one after it went back under. Threw a bucktail out in front of it and it smashed it. Could'nt believe it . I think it was a tiger muskie can't remember tho. |
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Posts: 1309
Location: WI | Saw something similar on Potato Lake in Rusk County. I got a couple follows on creepers from them. It was either their heads pokin' out or you could see their fins break water like a shark. Strange. |
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Posts: 101
Location: Northern Illinois | I'm glad I'm not the only one who has seen this. I've seen it on Silver Lake and Yellow Lake. |
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Posts: 76
| My folks have a cabin on a lake and when I was a kid I'd wake up before the butt crack of dawn to do a little walleye fishing. And one morning I looked over by the neighbors boat lift and seen a pike doing the same thing. It swam about 4 or 5 ft with its head sticking straight out of the water it then stuck its fin out of the water and waved at me. He all these years I thought I was seeing things. I never even told the folks for fear they'd stick me in the looney bin. The more I think about it, I think it may have winked at me too. |
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| Are you sure that it wasn't Mr. Limpit, or some other periscope-type scout? |
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Posts: 1061
Location: Medford, WI | Renaldo, did you originally mean that the muskies were like a pencil (vertically) up and down in the water with the mouth and head sticking out? It sounds like a few people are describing "porposing" or just when musky comes above the surface.
I've never seen the whole straight up and down thing, but I've seen plenty of porposing muskies...a few nice ones as well. Haven't been able to catch any of them yet. I rememeber reading something a few years ago...I believe it was a really old MH which had a quick note about "porposing" muskies and how they're thought to be impossible to catch, but the writer in the magazine thought otherwise and had experience catching them. I would imagine it's just like any other musky at any other time; you basically have no control whether they want to bite your bait or not. It sure is a neat thing to see though.
-Jake |
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Posts: 331
Location: Stevens Point, Wisconsin | Last fall prior to the start of the WMT championship on the Eagle River chain we encountered something rather funny. All the boats were fired up and getting ready to line up for the start of the tournament. Just behind my motor we see a musky with its head out of the water swimming like a snake zig zagging across the water. Almost looked like he came up to check out what the heck was going on so early in the morning! Looked like a big water moccasin swimming on top of the water! Pretty funny!
Ed
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Posts: 485
Location: On my favorite lake! | It almost sounds like the fish are doing what the Gar do. The will come to the surface with their fins out and they act like they are eating air with their beaks out of the water. Weird stuff! |
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Posts: 434
Location: searchin for 50 | The fish I seen were NOT porpoising. They had their heads out of the water like they were trying to see what was going on up here.Very Unique,if you haven't seen it then I guess thats one more thing to look for when your fishing.  |
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Posts: 1996
Location: Pelican Lake/Three Lakes Chain | The only lake I have seen it on is Pelican. It always seems to happen over deeper water too. Not sure what they are doing, strange indeed. |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Ever stick your face in the water to look around alittle? There's your sign.... |
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| I have! And you know what, there were a bunch of muskies lookin' at me all wide eyed like they'd never seen a person with their head underwater before. I swear I heard one of them say "why do they DO that?" I bet they're STILL talking about it!  |
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| Medford Fisher - 2/1/2007 10:05 PM
Renaldo, did you originally mean that the muskies were like a pencil (vertically) up and down in the water with the mouth and head sticking out? It sounds like a few people are describing "porposing" or just when musky comes above the surface.
I've never seen the whole straight up and down thing, but I've seen plenty of porposing muskies...a few nice ones as well. Haven't been able to catch any of them yet. I rememeber reading something a few years ago...I believe it was a really old MH which had a quick note about "porposing" muskies and how they're thought to be impossible to catch, but the writer in the magazine thought otherwise and had experience catching them. I would imagine it's just like any other musky at any other time; you basically have no control whether they want to bite your bait or not. It sure is a neat thing to see though.
-Jake Yes Medford, I did mean strait up and down like a pencil. I'm not sure what they were doing, but they might have been looking around to see what the disturbance was on the surface(our boat, lures?) |
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Posts: 32958
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | I have video of Pike standing on their tail and their head (literally) from this winter. It's a pretty common behavior. |
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| I've seen quite a few muskies swim with their heads out of the water at like a 45 degree angle quite a few times on the madison lake...you can get right up next to them and pretty much wack em with your rod if you want..they are in some sort of weird trance or something most times....
no idea what the heck they are doing...most i've seen do this are 30-38" inches ..none too big...
wacky fish |
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Posts: 574
| netted a decent pike doing this last year to make sure nothing was stuck in its throat, or stuck in its mouth. Seemed perfectly fine. Have seen muskies doing this at least 3 times in Madison |
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Posts: 793
Location: Ames, Iowa | We saw this alot up at Leech this year, fish swimming with their back arched and head out of the water, but the fish were not interested in a bait at all. I noticed that it almost always occurred nearer dusk. My wife and I followed one muskie doing this, and no bait would interest it, it was oblivious to anything. Could it have to do with the heat and the lower water level????
Don |
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| out on the lake this morning we had just fished thru an area...i looked over and saw a HUGE musky head/jaw straight up out of the water swimming with it's mouth open...said to my buddy "holy s**t look at that!!!"
fish swam about 5 -7 seconds like that before going back down...4 footer for sure...
I've seen smaller ones do that but nothing that large... |
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Posts: 281
Location: Girdwood, Alaska | Anyone ever have one come up on a bait like this before? I had a nice fish come up behind a jackpot that was aligned vertically like this... came up, opened up it's mouth, closed it, and went straight back down, (missed the bait completely, of course). Very weird indeed.... |
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Posts: 1504
Location: Oregon | Well it's not something that just occurs in the midwest. I was fishing in the state of washington last week and we saw two tigers in the 30+ inch range doing the same thing! And what DJ said........both of them we saw were doing this just before dark. Strange, very strange. I hope it's not a bad thing.
Jed V. |
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| last season, I had a muskie follow, and then start to swim away. It then rose to the surface, about 15 feet from the boat. it sat with it's head out of the water for about 30 seconds or more. It was like it was checking us out! i had never seen anything like that before! Clint |
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Posts: 3165
| This is actually VERY common to see in the twin cities area,,,most of the time it is on 'dark murky" water and when the water temps are up and is with tigers, a great place to see this is lake Nokomis mid july through August,,,I asked a local dnr muskie persom about this and they have no sure answer but some speculate they do it to flush parasites out that collect in ther gills |
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| I have seen this many times in pa and always with tigers.I have also herd the same theory.I believe these fish are the king of the fresh water,and curious .One of these fish had done this head dance in a circle,around me while i was wading in the river.Sure seemed like he was checking me out??Crazy fish!Bull Bob |
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Posts: 676
Location: Wisconsin | I saw this on Bush Lake in Bloomington with Tigers. The tiger just swam around the fishing dock bouncing it's head out of the water. Tried casting on it, but didn't seem to want anything. We just called it the retarded Tiger |
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Posts: 3165
| makes nonsense of the theory that muskies avoid 'direct sunlight' |
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Posts: 556
| saw a 50+ doing it on the west end of vermillion off the dock it was swimming with its head out of the water it did it six or seven times
Edited by guts 7/5/2007 12:46 PM
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Posts: 267
Location: Lake City,Pa. | Saw one doing the same thing, mouth wide open and swim up stream for about 50 yards. As we scratched our heads for a while we figured it out. The musky was eating bugs on the surface of the water! |
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Odd Muskie Behavior