What is Jumping in the bay
 

I have been noticing lately there are these longer silver fish that have been jumping like crazy in San diego bay if anybody knows what they are or why they are jumping

Mostly mullet. They're all over the place behind the mission bay shop.

look like this?
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:6...tionalPark.jpg orhttp://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:N...MulletFish.jpg

do have any idea why they are jumping

because thats what mullet do. Where I'm from in Florida we have a yearly competition for charity. Its called the mullet toss. A bunch of rednecks (no offense to any rednecks out there) get together and see who can throw a mullet the farthest. I got 96 feet and came in 3rd in '06. The winner had 120 feet and was a semi pro baseball player. The cool thing was I finally won a raffle and made $150 on the 50%/50%.

sorry to hijack your thread, but felt i should share my mullet knowledge with you.

You should see them in the carlsbad lagoon. They get pretty big and I had one jump over the bow of my yak. It definitely made me flinch. Almost reminded me of those jumping asian carp that have infested the rivers in the midwest. There are plenty of videos of boaters/fisherman getting whacked in the face by those jumping turds as they zoom down the river.

I hear they are quite sporty on fly gear or light tackle but they'll only hit bread/dough or flies.

I read that the reason they jump out the water like that is that they actually gulp air when they are airborne. They always remind me of that character on the Muppets Show.

mullet are believed to havce an organ inside there cheak that holds a pocket of air for when they are feeding in low auctionated areas. Witch is why in back bay areas, were the water is murky you see them jumping out of the water. thats the popular theory, buyt Scientist are still unsure as to why they jump like they do.

Mullets jump all over Dana, some of them up to 8 pounds acidently caught on the sabinki and snapping you off.

Corvina also jump from the water. You can often see them jumping near the Bahia.