I saw a video of this leaping fish on Facebook and was super impressed. I figured it was a Mako Shark but after digging it turned out to be a Barred Mackerel down under. Narrow barred mackerel are similar to the Atlantic kingfish.
I looked for a long time for a public version of it but the only place I found it was on Instagram and Facebook. A different angle of the same leap is on Instagram, too.
I had to settle for the screenshot above to add here. It is about at the apex of its leap above with the start point bottom left. The screenshot doesn’t do it justice.
In my search, I found a similar video with a similar mackerel. A wahoo in this case.
This article discusses it here.
They claim “Rare footage shows ‘ballistic’ wahoo leaping 30 feet high to catch bait.” I am not buying that but it is impressive. These mackerels are mostly high speed runners but sometimes that speed brings a jump.
I wanted to talk about Mako jumps as it is one of the best in the world at jumping. I remember a picture in an old book, maybe by Zane Grey or Kip Farrington, but I can’t remember who. It showed a picture of a mako at an impossible height out of the water. It made me love Makos. There are a lot of videos online now of them. The fly fishery for them off California was a surprise when it started. It wasn’t something I figure was doable but it is on small ones. I haven’t seen a Mako but once while working in aquaculture a boat brought in a porbeagle shark. While not a mako it has the general look of other mackerel sharks and that look is impressive. Apex predator was written all over it and I lusted to fish Makos but never did. Mako’s are one of the world’s greatest sport fish but they suffer the abuse of all sharks. Their fairly fast reproductive and growth cycles have helped but it is a shame how they are treated.
They like to target bluefish. When I surf fished in MA there were rumors they were seen chasing bluefish in the surf on occasion but I never saw it. I wish I had.