Tigers swimming on Surface

[ttabaleulb]

I saw this behavior quite a bit last Fall. Curious to know if you guys have witnessed this with Tigers, Pures or Pike in the past. Not sure why they might be doing this. I saw it in fish of all different sizes too. The first time I witnessed it, I thought I was gonna be involved in an Orca-like attack. LOL Hope the link works.


http://muskie.outdoorsfirst.com/watch.asp?id=1181

[muskyjerk]

If this happened to you at the time we compared trips on the same days last fall I saw it in conjunction with chasing schools of 4" baitfish. They didn't mind hitting lures 6-10" for me as well.

[JoshM3357]

I have see it on my local lake. Figured it was a carp at first till it got closer and saw it was a musky.

[ttabaleulb]

muskyjerk,

That is around the time that I first witnessed it. And there were TONS of baitfish right around that area too. I initially figured they were just makin their way thru piles of bait and fillin up on em.

josh,

I thought the same thing until one came close enough for a better view.

Do you guys know if the fish that you saw were Tigers? The ones I saw were and the only videos and reference I've seen so far on the web are of Tigers too. Just curious to see if Pures do that kind of thing also.

[Ivan]

You should try doing a search for that topic where you got the video. I am pretty sure I've seen threads about this topic. I want to say that the most scientific/legitimate reason was for flushing their gills off small parasites or something. I think many times the fish will be opening and closing its mouth while it swims around with its head out of the water.

[Red Childress]

I have also read that they may be "burping" themselves to rid their digestive tract of air bubbles which are formed during digestion.

I tend to believe Adam's post. If all muskies did this after they ate a meal, we would see this happening all the time on all musky waters.

[ttabaleulb]

I'll definitely try findin some more info about it on the web. The interesting thing that I noticed is that this activity seemed to coincide with feeding periods too. AND, as I mentioned, I always witnessed it right around areas that had plenty of Musky chow.

Now that I'm aware of it, I plan to see what else I can figure out while I'm on the water this year. If nothing else, it gives me an opportunity to try some sight fishing for them. LOL

[james]

4 years ago, my uncle and i were trolling in front of elijah in the dam, and we saw a musky doing that. we pulled our rods in and turned on the electric motor and got right up beside the fish. it was a pure-bred, and was between 48 and 52 " long. we watched it for 10-15 minutes, then it went under. there was a guy in a pontoon boat right by the handicapped pier, and he said that fish had just hit a walleye he was winding in ( we assumed it was the same fish, it was only 50 yards away ). he said it took the walleye right off his line, and this was about 1/2 hour before dark. we assumed it was trying to swallow/digest the walleye it had just eaten. pretty cool to watch. we both wished we had been there 1/2 hour earlier, as we may have hooked that fish before it fed.

[ttabaleulb]

Thats pretty wild to see that kind of thing, especially with fish that size. I think I got myself a little science project to work on while I fish this year.

[muskyjerk]

The ones I saw were just plain old muskies (not tigers) and they were in 3-8' of water.

[ttabaleulb]

Thats pretty much exactly the same depths that I've noticed the Tigers doing it. I'm gonna try to get some close up video this year if I can.

[james]

that one my uncle and i saw was swimming around on the surface, but it stayed over 25-30 feet of water the whole time. if you guys are familiar with the elijah area, it stayed out around the buoys in front of the dock there, the whole time. the guy in the pontoon boat was about half way between the dock and the handicapped pier, in about 10 feet of water.