Not many pike anglers may have the opportunity of seeing their intended quarry, and then, hopefully, inducing it to take our bait, but my experiences of stalking pike suggest that we can gain a useful insight into pike behaviour by watching them in clear water.                                                                                                                               

I am fortunate to live in Hampshire, famed for it’s clear chalk streams, but many Southern fisheries including gravel pits, rivers and canals are often of sufficient clarity to make stalking a viable possibility. 

For many years I have had a passion for stalking fish - be it Stillwater trout in lakes, grey mullet in harbours or pike in clear water. However my pursuit of pike by stalking really started by accident in September 1997. I decided I would try some deadbaiting on a local pit. On walking around the bank, wearing a peaked cap and Polaroids, I noted that the water was gin-clear and although the sun was fairly low in the sky, I could see the bottom quite easily up to ten to fifteen yards from the bank- at least where it was clear of thick ribbon weed. I saw a number of jacks on my walk and I therefore decided to use a mobile approach with one rod, the absolute minimum of other tackle and that I would try to catch any fish I could see.
I started in a favourite deadbait  ‘hotspot’ – a corner swim shaded by trees. Thick weed at about ten yards meant that I could only cast wobbled bait to the weed edge and then watch it flutter to the bottom before starting my retrieve. Second cast and I watched a fish, that I guessed to be about eight pounds, follow the sprat in towards the bank, I let the bait lie on the bottom and for what seemed an age, (probably only about five minutes), I watched the pike circle my bait, inspecting it before slowly retreating to the cover afforded by the weed. I wondered whether a change of bait could induce a more favourable response and quickly changed to a fresh dead rainbow trout. As soon as I cast this out the pike reappeared from the wall of weed and followed my bait in. However this time only a few seconds after the trout had settled on the gravely bottom I saw the pike tilt down in the water and  ‘suck’ it in. After seeing the gills flare I struck hard.

This spirited fish weighed a shade over fifteen pounds and gave me more pleasure than many larger specimens. A valuable lesson learnt here was that it is very easy (almost the rule) to under estimate the size of fish lying even about six feet down in clear water. However there really is no substitute for experience in assessing the size of fish while stalking.

Ideal conditions
Most of my clearwater piking since has been on a local canal but my experiences here would apply to other types of venue. Stalking is easiest when it is sunny, when there is little wind and when the sun is higher in the sky (in other words in the middle of the day in the Winter). These conditions tend not to be the best for catching fish but it is usually possible to stalk pike to some degree even on grey and windy days because many fish lie in the margins and these are often sheltered from the wind by backside cover.

Essential stealth
Like any method of stalking stealth is essential and perhaps even more so with pike fishing because of their keenness to lie under the cover of overhanging trees or alongside marginal rushes. Also, if the water is slightly coloured, as is often the case in the winter after rain, one’s vision may be limited to just the first few yards from the bank.

Pike, even large ones may be just under one’s feet and they may not be seen until they break cover. It is always worth having a few casts in “hotspots” as pike may be drawn from this cover when they were previously unseen. Some days (usually during less favourable weather conditions) I can walk along the canal without seeing any pike and on other days I have seen as many as a dozen or so good fish in a half-mile stretch. The fish are clearly there all the time but holed up under cover when not feeding. This explains, I believe, the fact that if you can see them you stand a very good chance of catching them because one is seeing feeding fish. On a number of occasions I have also caught good fish by ‘fishing blind’ particularly at dusk, in a spot where I had seen probably the same fish earlier.

In fact I have now adapted my deadbaiting to deliberately fish where I have seen good fish move in the past with greatly improved results. So what do I do if I have seen a fish I would like to catch? Well, I watch to see if the fish is on the move or not. If it is stationary, I will lower a deadbait under a float, fished about three feet over-depth, no more than a foot in front of the target fish. (Unfortunately there is a live bait ban on my local canal as their use could be devastatingly effective). Some fish will spook as soon as they see the bait, (I suppose that it must be rather unnatural for one’s dinner to land on one’s nose), and if this happens it is best to wait for the pike to come to rest again, and then recast at least six feet in front of the pike. Many fish however, do take the bait seconds after it has settled on the bottom – see enclosed photo of a 19lb fish that did just that.

Patrol routes
For pike which are on the move one has to guess their patrol route and cast well ahead of it to get one’s bait nicely settled on the bottom before hopefully, the pike swims right to it. One memorable fish, when I cast bait at it, would swim to the far bank of the canal, and when I cast to it there it would appear at the near margin. This cycle happened about four times but as the light started to fade, I cast out two baits – one to the near bank and one to the far bank and sat back. This fish eventually took my far-margin bait some two hours after I had first seen it – a fish over 19lb – a personal best for me from the canal at that time.
I have watched fish swim cautiously round and round the bait inspecting it (or the trace?). One such 20lb-plus fish spent about twenty minutes doing this before eventually swimming away at high speed. I feel sure that it was hungry but it definitely detected that something was amiss with my presentation. I think it may have also bumped into my mono. going up to my float. As a result of this experience I now float-ledger a deadbait with at least one swan shot eighteen to twenty-four inches above the trace swivel to tether some line to the bottom near to the bait. 
Using this set-up, on those occasions that a fish inspects the bait for a long time one can gently lie the rod down on the bank and step away from the edge – to avoid spooking the pike. After all if you can see the pike it can almost certainly see you too. One can then watch the float for an indication of a take with the odd surreptitious look to check that the fish is still in the vicinity.

For some reason popped-up baits have not worked for me with this style of fishing but I do believe that it is often worth critically- balancing the bait. I have seen a number of fish apparently trying to inhale my bait with mouth open and gills flaring but without my bait being taken in. Perhaps the rest of the terminal tackle causes some extra resistance or maybe the treble hooks end up under the bait and partially snag the canal bed- particularly over a weedy bottom. I critically balance my baits for stalking either with air –injecting or by placing small pieces of wine cork down the bait’s throats. I do not believe there are any ill consequences to the pike of using cork, as the pike never get a chance to swallow the bait as I always strike as soon as I see the target fish close it’s mouth.
       
I urge you to try stalking pike, as this visual method is always exciting – I know as my Polaroid’s keep steaming up at the critical moment when a good fish is about to take my bait!

This article was first published in Pike & Predators magazine