Jumping Trout

I usually fish for trout in streams in Pa, however this year in the fall Sept -Oct I fished in a dam, its a paid fishing place and I noticed about 20 to 30 trout jumping clean out of the water, I've been fly fishing for more years than I care to admit to.
I know when trout are feeding on Dry Flys, Emergers, Nymphs, and Midges, but I don't have any idea why they are jumping clean out of the water, I guess the best way to describe it is if you ever saw a propose or a dolphin coming completely out of he water, or if the trout were trying to catch an insect 2 feet above the water.
Wondering if anybody has ever experienced this kind of behavior in trout or why they do it ? Thanks Ed

Ed,
I fish a tailrace in Tennessee and often see trout do exactly as you describe. For the most part I see fish "slashing" in the water and inhaling the emergers on the surface. For those fish that get airborn I would guess they are chasing bugs, but I'm not sure.

Years ago I was amazed to see numerous browns leaping clear out of the Wolf River (Wisconsin) for hovering damsel flies. Try to match that kind of "hatch", boys and girls!

Chuck

I've seen the same thing, Chuck, but rainbow.

http://www.moldychum.com/trout-jumpi...h-dragonflies/

Cool video! Thanks for posting Silver Creek!!

Those jumping trout have to calculate the refractive index of light through water as do we from the surface looking into the water at them. Our ability to aim at them in the water is a bit "guessy" while theirs seems to be right on especially toward a moving object. They do well for a pea-brain.

Mark ( Now fishing Wyoming Teton/Y'Stone streams)

Dang,
People say the very same thing about me!
Kewl video for sure.
....lee s.

While that was a great video I have not seen any dragon flies, I'm thinking its to cold for them, a gentlemen told me he thinks the trout have something like lice, according to him it would be like an itch to us and by jumping clear out of the water and landing it helps either in discharging the lice or relieves there itch. Now I'm wondering if he could be right anybody have any thoughts on that theory ???

I have seen trout jump completely out of the water on occasion too, but mostly they do a surface roll over. What the conditions are that make the difference I have no ideas.
But let me post again something that I have experienced that's kinda related that I consider spectacular. My trout fishing is in the mountains and it's a considerable drive from where I live over here on the coast and I don't get up there as often as I'd like. Around home is warm water fishing .... two good sized rivers, and a lot of marl pits that were dug out for base in doing road construction, kinda the same as gravel pits. Also on rare occasion do some salt water fishing (in the salt water marshes). But back to warm fresh water fishing, the usual fare is L/M bass, crappie, and bream (bluegill). This occurrence happens usually while fishing the marl pits using a popper (although it happened one time using a Goddard Caddis fly) - having a L/M bass break completely out of the water and snatch that popper (or the fly) in mid air before it ever reaches the water surface!

I'm not sure Gentlemen but I have heard a bit of info that might be the answer to my question as originally posted, one gentlemen posted that the trout in question were jumping clean out of the water trying to discharge there eggs, the trout are in a sense locked in the dam, they can not run up stream to breed, so I would think that is there answer as to how to discharge there eggs. I did take one trout for the table and when I cleaned it I found it to be full of eggs. Ed

My friends and I get a place for week on Fairview Lake, in NE PA. The lake is stocked with trout. We go up in late May and in the evening sitting on the dock you could see trout and smallmouth jumping clear out of the water. There were caddis on the water so maybe that's what they were chasing.

I knew of a trout named Jumping Jehoshaphat in Ennis Montana that sucker would come flying out of the pond a good foot or two.

Be darned if I can remember the exact location but as I recall it was a pond at the end of town, in an old recreated western area...

Thats my story and I am sticking to it ,,, :)