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Posts: 138
Location: Utah | I've seen numerous Tiger Muskies in Pineview swim along the surface with their head out of the water. What causes this type of behavoir? Do pure Muskies do this?
I was able to recently capture this on video...not the greatest video but until I get another Tiger to cooperate this is the best I can do. Sometimes they swim on the surface with their mouths open and sometimes they don't as seen in this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUzeCx4e0tk
Can someone point me to some research on it so I can at least read a little on this? Thanks in advance for anyone who can provide info.  |
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Posts: 1286
Location: WI | Pure strain do that to sometimes. Nobody really knows why. |
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Posts: 238
Location: Rhinelander | There is/was a small lake in MI UP we used to fish a lot and this was a pretty common thing. I didn't believe it when the boys would tell their stories so I made the trek and low and behold witnessed it myself. These fish would swim with their whole head pointed out of the water and past the gill plate. A couple fish you could make out the pectoral fins.
I've seen this happen probably 5 times on that lake and only twice more on other lakes one being LVD on the WI/MI border.
We witnessed this event mostly early evenings, relativly calm or low wind days and after warm sunny days late in the year. My time frames have been in the Aug-Sept months.
Why does it happen? We thought maybe low O2 considering the conditions we would witness it on. When I saw it on LVD it blew my theory on only weedy relativly shallow back water bays.
Would like to really know why muskies do this. |
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| I have seen this many times we have videos of this and you can actually get really close to the fish when they do this...liuke within 10ft and almost grab them...its very weird to see...no idea why |
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Posts: 2894
Location: Yahara River Chain | Maybe they do this to get a better view of where they are going??? |
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Posts: 82
Location: deep in the slop | maybe they're looking for toes to chew on! |
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| they are looking for ducks or other things to eat that could be on the surface....like topraiders? |
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| they wont hit a bait when there doing this...maybe there sick? |
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Posts: 167
| they are looking for stupid fisherman throwing hooks at them lol................. |
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Posts: 2865
Location: Brookfield, WI | Those fish on the surface are scouts. Ever since Clint Sieverson put the hooks to her last year, the Tiger Queen sends out recon patrols so she always knows when he's on the water. He treated her well, but she has a reputation to uphold. She's successfully avoided him, but he did nail the Princess several weeks back during Matchfishing. Scouts or no scouts, it's only a matter of time until they meet again.
Kevin
Edited by MuskyHopeful 9/13/2008 9:49 PM
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Posts: 95
Location: LOTW every chance I get | Had the same thing happen to me a couple years ago at Minaki. Kind of reminded me of Flipper. Seemed like she was just checking us out. Had absolutely no interest in our baits, almost like she was mocking us. |
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| Don't humans peer into the water to see what's there? Why wouldn't a fish--a brainy one--not be curious as to what is above the surface of the water? |
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Posts: 355
Location: Wausau, Wisconsin | I think they are looking for bikinis. |
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Posts: 431
| I watched the video, and I've never seen anything like that. That truly was bodysurfing. I've seen a bunch of fish lying motionless on the surface for a period of time. I've had some success getting those fish interested. I'm sure everybody sees fish porpoise from time to time also. I don't know why they porpoise either. I've caught a couple of fish after seeing them porpoise. |
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Posts: 82
Location: deep in the slop | i figure i might as well share this vid i found on youtube a while back. this was a fairly large fish, prolly mid 40's? (my best guess anyways)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO7u77qio0I
Enjoy! |
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Posts: 1504
Location: Oregon | I have seen them do the same thing in the state of Washington. It seems to me that they are "not quite right" while doing this. The reason I say that is you can move the boat right on top of them and unlike a healthy fish they seem totally oblivious to their surroundings. Maybe it has something to do with the swimbladder or some type of parasitic problem, whatever it is I'm guessing it is not a good sign.
Jed V. |
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| Me and Lance Uppercut have witnessed this fanomomom a coulpe times up on Kentuck. We thought they were airing out there gills to kill some nasties in there of something. Can't get the Tonys to bite when there showing off like that, that's for sure.
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Posts: 221
| My biggest Tiger did this after I released her for about 30 seconds. I then went up and shoved her head under while she was swimming and she went down. ....easy unhooking in the Beckman, quickly back in the water, kicked hard to go, no more stress then usual. Insane fight though. Windy, overcast..... Looked like he was gasping for air. Pike have been known to nose up to air bubbles under the ice when O2 levels are low, maybe this has something to do with it.
Darcy Cox |
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| a very werid site to see, its almost like there just cruising around looking around for no reason... |
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Posts: 767
Location: Ames, Iowa | Have seen this at Leech- mostly at dusk and yes these fish were oblivious to boats and baits. Never have seen northerns do this and there are a ton of northerns where we fish. Have seen multiple northerns in an area porpoise out of the water, that was wild. Can't figure out what they are doing and whether they do it purposely.
djw |
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| I've seen muskies do this in Madison lakes as well...2 yrs ago in June I believe we witnessed an app. 48" fish do this for at least 40 feet...crazy site..
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Posts: 1316
Location: Madison, WI | Fish looks like an alligator cruising through the water! Maybe they're trying to get their neutral buoyancy back?
HappyMusky - 9/14/2008 10:00 AM
i figure i might as well share this vid i found on youtube a while back. this was a fairly large fish, prolly mid 40's? (my best guess anyways )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO7u77qio0I
Enjoy! |
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Posts: 135
Location: Elgin, IL | Saw a mid 30s muskie doing this a few years ago on Cass Lake. I remember thinking that there wasn't much chance of the fish hitting while it was doing something goofy like that, but I tossed a bucktail at him anyhow. Right around that time the fish submerged and tagged the bait. He quickly gacked the bait ... and then came up and followed a couple turns of a figure 8! Crazy. I was pretty surprised that he was even interested. Never did manage to get him to commit again, but it was still cool to see. |
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Posts: 3147
| this is very common on the twin cities tiger muskie lakes,,A Minnesota dnr Muskie Bio said that he thinks they do this to flush parasites out of their gills.
in any case it makes nonsense of the theory that muskies eyes cant stand direct contact with sunlight |
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| happy hooker - 9/16/2008 10:30 AM
this is very common on the twin cities tiger muskie lakes,,A Minnesota dnr Muskie Bio said that he thinks they do this to flush parasites out of their gills.
So the science boys are saying me and Rock are right on that maybe. We thought for sure they were airifiing the nasties out there gills. It was really Rock that came to that idea. He's the smart one in the boat. And the strong one.
Me? I'm fast. And handsome. Hehehehe. |
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| Have seen northern do this on Leech in the spring. I asked everyone I could think of and was told they were eating mayflies which sort of made sense as the hatch was on. Could be/maybe I dont know weird tho |
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| two years ago on Lake Calhoun my friend and I saw a tiger with head out of the water, I cast at it, half way back to the boat I hooked the fish to my surprise. working the fish around my 50horse lost it. Just last Sunday nice size fish (45"ish ) did the head out of the water after missing the fish a couple of cast earler. It looked like it was checking us out. or laughing at us for not catching it.
If muskies eat birds, ducks on the surface they must think out-side the water. Maybe not so dump of a fish after all? |
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Tiger Muskies Swimming on the Surface...Why???