What You Don't Always See...

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http://www.fishingmagic.com/fm-features/18243-what-you-don-t-always-see.html




How often do you actually get to see your pike bait taken? Read about some of the pike's peculiar behaviour....

Re: What You Don't Always See...

Interesting article Cliff, plenty of food for thought :thumbs:

Keith

Re: What You Don't Always See...

Its something I have never been lucky enough to see and always imagined that the Pike would just pick the bait (dead) up if it was feeding and ignore it if it wasn't, lives I have always thought would invoke a more natural feeding response, you never stop learning in this game

A thought about a question raised in the article Clearly, carp wise-up and avoid ‘suspect’ baits – do pike?

I would doubt that Pike would have time to wise up after repeat captures as Carp do as a Pike may die after being subjected to the intense pressure some Carp seem to just shrug off with capture after capture.

Re: What You Don't Always See...

I feel they do wise up. This might explain why, later in the winter you get runs to which the bait comes back with no marks on it.
Also those runs where they just hold and don't get hooked.
Also why it gets hard and I BLANK ...mg:

Re: What You Don't Always See...

I was lucky in that my very early pike fishing as a young teenager was on the upper reaches of a river that was generally shallow and often crystal clear.

I will always remember reeling in and leaving my previously trotted sprat in some slack water right beneath me whilst I had a bite to eat and a cup of coffee, only to be witness to a small jack of 5lb or so appearing from downriver and picking up my bait perfectly across the jaws before turning and moving back off downriver again.

That helped me understand deadbaiting a lot back in the day, the same river has also given me many more visual experiences of pike inspecting a bait and how the slightest twitch at the right moment can induce a take.

Very formative experiences though, that first instance of seeing the pike picking up the bait is as fresh and clear in my mind as if it had happened this morning despite the fact that it was over thirty years ago.

Re: What You Don't Always See...

I've seen Pike blowing dead baits off the bottom, I always thought to make it easier to take into it's mouth. When I've seen it, it has always resulted in a take and that twitch you sometimes get before it slides away, I thought was down to this. I tend to put something boyant on the 'hook side' of the bait to make sure it settles hooks up and doesn't snag the bottom.

On a different note, the scenes in 'Catching the Impossible' where the pike appears scared of the patanostered bait would indicate that if they are not really on the feed, they aren't stupid. When they are really on though.....

Good article.

Stu

Re: What You Don't Always See...

I was on a carp syndicate lake in lincolnshire back in the eighties, wintertime we fished it for the odd decant pike it held.
One very mild end of season day I had changed my badly damaged sardine deadbait for a fresh one and simply dropped the old one in about two foot of marginal water before settling down in my chair.
A short time later looking down at the fishes carcass I could see a pike about a foot away perfectly motionless.
I watched for almost an hour at this little scene, all the time the pike getting closer and closer with scarcely any discernable movement.
Finally the pike was only an inch away and stayed like that for what seemed an age--- would it or wouldnt it take the sardine?
In a flash it did, barely saw a single movement it was so quick then it just turned very slowly and moved away.
Whenever I deadbait for pike now I always have that scene in my minds eye -- a pike with its nose an inch away from my baited hooks that could take an hour for it to take.
Often when I have a recast the thought haunts me that my only take of the day may have been blown.

Re: What You Don't Always See...

URL=http://s979.photobucket.com/user/GrahamE1/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20160214_142530-1_zpsk5xymc5y.jpg.html]



Im sure this one was in my swim on the Wye for the 3 hours i sat there Sunday.
Until i had one last coffee.

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