i really enjoyed reading today's FP as it reminded me of the countless hours i spent fishing for a 1,10meter+ pike last season. in the last years my fishing approach on my home river changed from relatively unfocused fishing to targetting specific big fish. This strategy worked out great for trout the last 3 seasons, i learned a lot about the behaviour of big trout in my river, and catch them consistently now. But with pike, its an totally different story. Although there is an enormous pike population in some parts of the river, pike fishing is very frustrating most of the time. For example the huge pike that i was after last autumn and winter was totally predictable in his patrolling path along the bank. i encountered him 95% of my attempts, he always seemed interested in my flies but never took one of them. i tried everything,...larger flies, smaller flies, all kinds of streamer designs and colours, different steel traces,at morning, noon, evening, after dark, different retrieves,...the result was always the same: he chased the fly, adapting his speed to my retreiving speed but never attacked it. I don´t know how many hour i invested into that fish, but i abandoned an expensive language course and delayed finishing my masters thesis for that fish, i was some kind of haunted
but i didnt´t get him. interestingly, i observed this or similar behavior for most larger pike in this river. last week i was looking for big post spawn pike in a shallow area of my river. it didn´t take long till i found them. all together i found 6 or 7 bigger pike, 2 1 meter+ the rest between 80 and 90cm. their reaction to my fly was quite the same as i decribed before. it`s not that i do never catch pike in this river, there are days when i catch 2 good fish, but in relation to the fish density and my time invested i think there must be more possible. Has anyone experienced similar behavior of big pike? Maybe there are some variables that i am missing, ...i am sure there are. the most plausible explanation for me as yet is that they can see or sense me (i am fishing from the bank most of the time, but moving really slowly and as stealthy as possible).
I caught many pikes suddenly running into the fly from 8 - 12meters distance after hanging my fly 20 to 30 seconds! Pike come for flies from more than 40meters sometimes. I think they can sense the fly from much greater distances though.