unusual actions/steelhead

[CAGEY]

Fished the Willamette today and saw a really weird sight. We were anchored and a big steel head leaped out of the water to a height of about three feet. The fish was headed directly away from us and did this leap a total of five times, each time coming clear out of the water. Almost looked like a porpoise jumping. I have seen dozens of them jumping but never anything like this. Anyone ever seen this happen? images/icons/cool.gif images/icons/cool.gif

[swampy]

same thing happened to me the other day ...just as I pulled anchor to leave !!! so close to the boat my refex reaction was to duck !! I really thought she was going to jump onto the bow ...it looked like maybe a steelhead on its way back downstream ...had some color to it ....i think they do that because they don't have a middle finger !!!!!

[Mike H]

Yeah, I've seen some pretty weird steelhead behavior too. I was walking the bank once when I come up to a tailout and a nice buck was laying about 6 ft. from the shore. We both saw each other but he doesn't spook. Instead he does this little half jump where his upper half of his body came out of the water and went back down without a splash. It felt like he was looking at me. A few seconds later he did the same thing. He was probably just checking me out.

I was walking another stream early this winter when mutiple times I came across bright steelhead laying in tailouts paired up with chinook. The steelhead were all hens and they were digging reeds. I saw a few male chinook actually "fighting" over who gets to spawn with the steelhead. Crazy fish!

Mike H

[Salmonator]

I have seen steelhead and fall chinook do this and almost every time the fish has a plug or spinner in it's mouth that it had just broken off. I wonder if that fish had a hook or bait that it had swallowed from a broken off rig on the bottom?

[FishinMission]

When I see this....I tell the folks in my boat that it's coming up to look at all the stupid fishermen!! images/icons/shocked.gif

[Deleted User]

Last September I hooked (and lost) a 'B' fish on the Deschutes. The hookup went something like this: Huge take down, then my reel does this, "bzzzz,bzzzz,bzzz,SNAP!"

After that my fish began jumping out of the water about 6ft in the air! Yes, I saw my nice lure hanging out of its mouth, and it continued to jump a total of 8 times, and each time I swear the fish was dog cussing me. Made me feel like dirt.

[CAGEY]

Salmonater, it did not appear to have anything in its mouth. I know it did not have my rainbow spinner in its mouth the rotten bugger. Ha Ha. images/icons/frown.gif

[David Johnson]

Cagey,

This time of year it's somewhat common to see spawnered out steelhead on there way back down stream jumping several times out of the water. I don't know why but they do.

Saw one do this today on the Clackamas.

[Nanook]

Post spawning pure joy? LOL. images/icons/grin.gif

[OR Coast Range]

I'd think that they would just roll over and go to sleep images/icons/grin.gif .

[CAGEY]

Hey everybody, thanks for responding. I thought i had seen something that hardly ever happens. I learned something today. I have fished for years and that was a first for me. I think i agree with ******.cagey images/icons/grin.gif images/icons/rolleyes.gif

[Osprey]

This sin't a steelie story but here goes,a few years back while fishing at the Slag pile off Tacoma,we witnessed a large Fall King jumping completely out of the Water next to a small boat with one fisherman in it,the last one was so close it got the guy wet as he looked over the side at where the fish had just been,the fish jumps on the other side and.....lands in the boat images/icons/grin.gif
we fell over laughing sooo hard.
For some reason that fish never came out of that boat images/icons/rolleyes.gif ....Os