wind in the Water Feb. 2002

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Date: December 21, 2002 at 22:23:10
From: ken, [pool-64-223-39-246.prov.east.verizon.net]
Subject: wind in the Water Feb. 2002

I used to but I have learned that fish can hold in the most powerful currents with ease. I have a theory and it is subject to revision but it works for me and here it is. But first I will tell you what I had to overcome in my "scientific programing" to see what was right in front of me. One day many years ago I was fishing for landlocked salmon under a waterfall and I kept seeing this big salmon come up near the surface and then go down again. He was not feeding just coming up and then going down in some very heavy water. I was standing on a concrete abutment and I had a good perch to see him when he came up. I noticed after a while that there was a re-occurring boil that preceeded his showing himself. After I noticed this I began to pay attention to the fact that he was always in the same location on the side of the boil. He was riding the boil not swimming against the current. This made me wonder if all that I had read about the fish using their muscles to hold against current and getting tired was flawed in it's root assumptions in real life as opposed to reasonable construct based on
the idea that fish in a current tank are subject to the same forces as fish in the wild. I watched this fish for hours and he is still swimming there as far as I know but one thing I noticed was that he did not wiggle and swim but rather flew in the water without any noticable effort. He appeared like a seagull riding the wind as it comes up over a roof when it is trying to land on the peak. I started to think about birds and airplanes and how the air moving over the curvature of their wings and their body produces lift.
Then I started to think about the density of air and the density of water and the shape of birds and the shape of fish. I knew that if I was seeing correctly that if I had the power to design a bird that flew in the higher density of water it would have to be much more compact and have a structure that would allow it to use the lift of the water moving over it's upper curves to propel it forward. I realized that a fish and a bird both have wings the fish's are called pectoral fins. They both have a tail and many other structural similarities. I began to realize that birds and fish are similar but live in a fluid moving world with a different density. I thought about tuna fish with their high curved back and the speed that they can move in the water. Was it all muscle or was some of it their ability to transfer that lift into thrust. The upward energy of the lift against the fixed and movable pectoral fin and the fish moves forward. I began to look at heavy current with new eyes and I found that heavy current is a place that fish especially big fish use as a feeding station much more frequently than I had ever realized. The faster the current the more lift, the more lift the more thrust, the more trust the less effort. I began to watch fish that were holding in current and watched how they held and how much wiggleing they did and I found that the bigger the fish the less wiggle and when they came up to feed they would flick their pectoral and come up like a rocket and then go straight back down without moving their tail. So in answer to your question--
They ride the current and don't need a break in it to remain stationary in relation to the bottom and they do not get tired because they are not using their muscles but the wind in the water just like soaring birds. If you want to try this theory out the next time you go trout fishing, fish in the heavy water that you would ordinarily avoid and you will find some enormous trout that no one fishes for waiting for you. I did. Stripers are masters at riding the wind in the water as are many other types of fish that are designed to use the lift that the water moving over them to hold effortlessly in heavy current. Modern submarines are perhaps using this same principel to achieve the incredible speed they reach while submerged.

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