My teammate muttered 'salmon' under his breath. I immediately recognized the large head and thin body as that of the shortnosed sturgeon. The next two consecutive jumps clinched my identification. Salmon jump out of the water head first and re-enter the water head first. They probably jump to dislodge parasites in their, gills.
Sturgeon seem to jump mostly prior to an electrical storm.
This observation was passed on to me by David Gorham, a fisherman and conservationist who has worked with sturgeon for many years. He claims that sturgeon go deep before a storm and are generally scarce until the electrical event is over. Maybe sturgeon share the same sensitivity to electrical fields with their bad-boy cousins the sharks. It is said that a shark can sense the electrical discharge from a nine-volt battery from one kilometre away in open water. In terms of predators, sturgeon have few.