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Posts: 177
Location: Cohasset, MN | I was fishing a very low population lake this weekend - haven't seen a muskie out there for 3+ years but I'm still trying. At dusk, about 15-20 feet from the boat, I saw a fish (esox "X") swim sideways with its head and part of its belly out of the water for several feet. I only got to see the underside of its jaw and belly (no, I wasn't close enough to count pores). The fish was about 30" and was in about 5 feet of heavily weeded water. Surface water temp was 72F.
The size of the fish didn't give me any clues. Not having seen a muskie in some time and the ample pike population tell me it was likely the latter. The warm shallow water suggests to me that it was a muskie. I've never seen a pike on the surface with its head out of the water.
The tie-breaker question for me is: Do pike swim on the surface, too ? |
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Posts: 157
| I personally have never seen a northern do this, but on a recent evening I was casting a large weedflat and a musky swam with it's head out of the water for 15-20 feet in a half circle around the bow of the boat, Almost taunting me........ |
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Posts: 307
| Yes, I have seen pike do it as well as muskies. |
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Posts: 1169
Location: New Hope MN | stcroixmusky - 9/22/2009 10:51 AM
I personally have never seen a northern do this, but on a recent evening I was casting a large weedflat and a musky swam with it's head out of the water for 15-20 feet in a half circle around the bow of the boat, Almost taunting me........
I had something similar happen 3 weeks ago. Burned a bucktail across a point and had a ski stick his head all the way out of the water, past his gills. Did a little jump, and back down. He must have swam like that for 10 ft or so. Crazy...
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Posts: 281
Location: ROckford IL | I seen pike do this on Delavan several times, one spot i know holds pike year around, nice deep hole near a shallow flat |
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Posts: 208
Location: Sun Prairie, WI | Seen a pike doing this sunday night got a couple quick photos and about 10sec of video. Was able to get right up next to the thing.
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 IMGP1051 [Desktop Resolution].JPG (83KB - 252 downloads)
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Posts: 177
Location: Cohasset, MN | All righty, then. It's settled (for me). Pike it is. Cool pics ! Thanks, everyone. |
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Posts: 313
Location: Bemidji, Lake Vermilion | Absolutely agree that pike will surface like that. I've seen them do this lots of times, particularly real large pike.
Those pics are absolutely great!! |
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Location: SE Wisconsin | I, too, have seen this. I always imagined it was a way to sort of swallow something they just ate, just like we see musky porpoising after they consume a meal, there's no doubt in my mind there's a connection here. Maybe the baitfish is sitting in their throat and the air does something for them, I'm not entirely sure. . . Any BSTs? |
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