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Posts: 134
Location: East TN | So I know this is asked quite often, but I tried to search for it and couldn't find much info on it. I have heard several different explainations for this(digesting food, getting something out of their gills?, to adjusting their swim/air bladder). Has anyone else done any research on this to figure out more specifically as to what a musky is doing when it does this? I see them doing this on my lake quite often and i've always been curious as to what causes them to do this.  |
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Posts: 1316
Location: Madison, WI | I'm thinking they might be getting their air bladder full or to the point where they are neutrally buoyant. I see suckers do this all the time with fishing fall, fight their way up top take a gulp of air and burb up the excess. |
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Posts: 433
Location: Cedarburg, Wisconsin | How could it have anything to do with the air bladder when there is no connection from the bladder to the outside world through the mouth or gills? Thought lakers were the only native freshwater fish that had the ability to release air through their mouths.
I think they are trying to evolve! Remember the old saying they are deep, shallow, or somewhere in between? Now they might be up in the woods! Pretty crafty those muskies are.  |
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| I have seen this a number of times on different lakes in Northern WI in the early fall lake turnover period. I presumed it had to do changing water temps in the lake at time I seen them porposing. They would be posoising but they wouldn't hit or even follow up my bait when cast directly in front of them. I was amazed to see them do this repeatedly on numerous days. (The only time we have seen this repeatedly was in the early fall lake turnover period).
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Posts: 1061
Location: Medford, WI | Some lakes seem to have muskies that porpois very often - on a calm day, you're just about guaranteed to see at least one, usually more. These fish are definitely catchable! Don't think that they won't bite. Some lakes I've never seen one fish porpoise after spending days fishing on them. No theories on the reasoning at all...usually in areas with lots of baitfish that are high in the water column though.
-Jake |
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| There is a connection between the swim bladder and the mouth in the Esox family. Keep in mind the swim bladder evolved from a lung. I'm not sure if they are up gulping air, or if they are just being muskies doing what they want. The only way to that I could see to test the theory that they are gulping air for the swim bladder would involve removing air from the bladder and seeing what the response is. I can't see anyone doing a study on this since it would probably be detrimental for the experimental fish. |
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Porpoising?