surface feeding ?

More out of interest than anything. The other day I was fishing a new venue and we kept seeing a big pike surfacing with its mouth open poking its head right out the water going up and down, lochness monster style lol. We assumed it was catching small fry? But with my float being 3 ft away with a tempting looking roach attached what would this pike have been doing? Is it common to see pikepoking there heads all the way out the water lol.
Cheers

I have seen it a couple of times, dont ask me why they do it. I can remember once , sat behind my rods at river level, when a pikes head with mouth open, started coming towards me. It was just like you say , as if it was collecting fry, I dropped a livebait on its nose 4 or 5 times in the next 15 minutes or so, before it got bored and sank bank in to the depths. So frustrating, but fascinating to witness aswell.

Yeah it was quite bizarre did it a few times throughout the day !

seen this many times, my view is ,its pike in some form of distress ,probably from deep hooking or being hooked in gill rakers ,hopefully im wrong,and its just some weird behaviour they get up to

yawning??

what they are doing is looking at your rods and set up, if its not top of the range kit then they will swim off and tell the others so they can all have a good laugh...

matt859 wrote:what they are doing is looking at your rods and set up, if its not top of the range kit then they will swim off and tell the others so they can all have a good laugh...

Brilliant!!!

matt859 wrote:what they are doing is looking at your rods and set up, if its not top of the range kit then they will swim off and tell the others so they can all have a good laugh...

think there might be some kind of a problem its not normal behavior some kind of swim bladder issue.......

maybe its an indication of lower oxygen levels in the water? i dont know but just a thought if the pike cant get enough oxygen through its gills, but why would only one fish be doing it?

maybe acclimatising to a drop in water temperature

It probably thinks its a duck

trying to get a big burp out after a belly full

creamcake007 wrote:seen this many times, my view is ,its pike in some form of distress ,probably from deep hooking or being hooked in gill rakers ,hopefully im wrong,and its just some weird behaviour they get up to

I think you're right, it was a fish in distress. I suspect they can get like this if they've swallowed air, as they might if they've fought on the surface or been kept in a net in shallow water.

The last time I wtnessed this was when a fish followed a lure I was retrieving and tried to take it as I lifted it out of the water. It missed the lure but probably got a gobfull of air as it did so. It then behaved as described above for fifteen to twenty minutes, gulping its way around the swim until it drifted off downstream (on a river, obviously).

fish swallow air??

I believe they do, although not intentionally. On the odd occasion I've had a gassed up fish it's been either when the fish has fought hard on the surface or when I've kept it in a landing net hanging over the side of the boat whilst getting my camera gear ready (I now use a sack instead because of this).
Your comment about wanting to have a big burp is not far from the truth in my view.

Ive never actually seen this behaviour but I reckon what Eric says is just about spot on, if you think about it pike attack with a short burst of speed with their mouths wide open so if it did this near the surface then it would get a good gobfull of air in the process. That air would be trapped and causing discomfort and as air rises the "ball" of trapped air would be bringing the fish to the surface so the best thing for mrs pike to do would be to open her mouth and dispell the air bit by bit. ie burp it out. Good answer Eric.

yep that sounds about right.... if the fish has swallowed air it would upset its balance and make it buoyant until it "burped" it out.