David McLachlan attempts to shed some more light on the enigma that is pike feeding behaviour

IT WAS with a great deal of interest that I read Dave Kelbrick’s article on pecking orders in Pike and Predators 48. 

This phenomenon has fascinated me for some time in the same way that all other aspects of feeding bahaviour interests me.
To my mind, pecking orders definitely exist (even though I can’t explain how or why they occur). However, where I have a slight difference of opinion with Dave is where he says that they only seem to appear amongst really big pike. In my experience they can happen just as often with lesser-sized pike.

To illustrate my point, the following accounts of a few sessions spring to mind (All the following weights are in order of capture:

 Half hour feeding spell during a one-hour session on a local gravel pit: 13lb 8oz, 11lb 10oz, and 8lb 8oz.

Fifteen minute feeding spell, lure fishing session, Baston Pits, Lincolnshire: 17lb 4oz, 13lb 7oz.

One and a half hour feeding spell at disk before an all night session on a local gravel pit: 14lb 10oz, 12lb 10oz, 8lb 1oz, jacks.

Thirty-five minute feeding spell at dawn. Lincolnshire stillwater: “22lb, 13lb 13oz, 11lb.

Ten minute feeding spell from a two-hour session on a local gravel pit: 16lb 10oz, 12lb 7oz.

Half-hour feeding spell from all-day session on a Cambridgeshire Fenland drain: jacks, 21lb 12oz, 16lb 8oz, 12lb 4oz.

I’m sure if I were to sit down and think about it a little longer, then a few more sessions like these would come back to me, but I think the above lists shows what I’m getting at.

Like Dave, I can also think of many other occasions where pike were caught in a random order, irrespective of size. Even so, pike being caught in ‘biggest first’ order happens so often that there has to be much more to it than just coincidence. And as I have already said, my observations tell me that it can happen just as often with pike less than twenty pounds as it does with pike over twenty pounds. After all, the term ‘big pike’ should be relative to the water in which it lives don’t you think?

Large and small
So in my view, pecking orders most definitely exist amongst double-figure pike, and in some places, high singles as well, because on certain waters, this size of pike may be the biggest group of pike living there.

While we’re on this subject, an interesting example of pecking orders and feeding behaviour must be mentioned in greater detail. When we look at example number six on the above list. In that instance the jacks came first – all eight of them, in fact. These smaller pike of two to six pounds all fell to paternostered livebaits over a two-hour period, then there was about 45 minutes of inactivity, then along came the 21lb 12oz fish, then the 16lb 2oz and then the 12lb 7oz. All of these fish fell to float legered deadbaits dropped into the same spot during a thirty-minute period. A classic case also of bigger pike having a preference for deadbaits, for they totally ignored livebaits that were dropped right on their noses (always puzzled me that one!). No more jacks were caught after the big ones came on the feed by the way.
This whole subject of pecking orders is certainly an interesting one, and for me it shows once again why pike fishing is such an absorbing pastime without the need to target huge pike and little else. Though I can see why some people might want to do this, and can appreciate the time and effort that goes into this style of pike fishing.
Staying with feeding spells but on a related subject, people who take any interest in my articles could be forgiven for thinking that I’m a moon phase fanatic (for want of a better description) whose pike fishing is dominated by moon phases and little else. This isn’t entirely true.
To my mind, and without a shadow of doubt, the dominant force governing when and how pike feed throughout the course of a twelve-month cycle is the weather. And it is the sudden a dramatic changes, which occur throughout the year that stimulate big pike to feed with a vengeance, as opposed to those periods when they are fickle feeders.

Any animal, which senses an imminent drop in temperature, will eat more to compensate. And a pike instinctively knows in advance just how long cold or flood water conditions are going to last. It therefore eats sufficient amounts of food in advance to see itself through these conditions.

Sometimes these unsettled conditions last only a day or two; sometimes it is weeks at a time. If these unsettled or adverse conditions last weeks or more, then it seems that pike, like most wild animals, can adapt to the situation; the metabolism slows down and it begins to feed at a much reduced rate, so reduced in fact that at time it might not be worth us fishing for them. Unless we’re the die-hard type of angler, but they do feed, even in chocolate coloured fast-flowing water, even in icy cold water.

A good example of pike responding to a sudden change in weather comes from events that have happened recently in my own fishing.
I went for weeks and weeks plodding away at it through some very warm settled weather (mostly high pressure, sunny, bright conditions) with very little to show for my efforts, except small pike and the occasional low double. These fish fell mostly to livebaits, and to be honest, this was all I was expecting.

After the deluge
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, one day in late October, we had a terrific downpour which lasted fourteen hours non-stop. This was the first of its kind in months. The very next day I’m into a 24lb 4oz pike from a local gravel pit. Not only that, but I lose a good double on my local River Nene (a good pike from the Nene, by the way) the day just prior to the downpour.

All of a sudden I hear of big pike being caught from waters of all types around my region; trout waters, rivers, pits and drains, with twenties coming out all over the place.

Now for anyone who thinks that this is just coincidence, here’s the interesting bit. On the day I had the 24lb 4oz pike, we had a moon-rise at 13.05. I had the run at 13.10! How often does this kind of occurrence happen before you realize that it is much more than coincidence?
I’ve seen this type of ‘coincidence’ so often now that I no loner question it, but accept it as being part of the way pike feed. You the reader can make up your own mind…

Just as pike have a feeding cycle throughout the course of a 12-month period that changes in intensity with the changing of the seasons, it seems to me that they also have an outside stimulus influencing when they should start and stop feeding during a 24-hour period. In other words a daily cycle. These periods when pike are stimulated to feed seem to vary in their duration in accordance with the state of the weather, water conditions, air temperature, barometric pressure etc. from virtually not happening at all (for instance in freezing conditions, or extremely hot days, that have a negative effect on feeding and therefore overrides the influence of the changing position of the moon) to a couple of hours of non-stop intense feeding during optimum weather conditions within key moon phase periods ( rise, sets etc.).

One of the things that has struck me as much as anything else whilst studying feeding behaviour, is the way in which big pike have been caught at least 75% of the time around specific moon change periods; i.e. moon rise/set, and at its zenith and nadir (highest and lowest points). The number of occasions that these bigger pike will turn up within a few minutes of these periods is uncanny.

Often when we leapfrog along a Fenland drain or river, we will get a run or two at every other swim. This gives the illusion that pike are totally random and opportunist feeders. However, if you look at this from a different angle and ask yourself is how many times do you leapfrog for ages along a drain with nothing to show for it, this also happens an awful lot doesn’t it!

If pike aren’t ‘switched on’ to feed, then they won’t feed, and they have to be switched on first by the correct weather conditions, and secondly by other outside stimuli, such as moon phases or sun rise and sets.

More than theories
Other people have already mentioned this. I first came across this theory in an article in Pike & Predators by an ‘unknown’ piker by the name of Pete Hiscox, about two years ago. This was quickly followed up by Alastair Rawlings’ ‘Cold Front’ concept. To make these theories work for me I had to have enormous faith in what both writers were saying. Even when results didn’t come overnight, I pressed on, because I had a gut feeling that this was more than just another gimmick or half-baked idea.

To understand it fully, I had to forget my old ideas on pike feeding periods, and look at feeding behaviour from a whole new dimension. It was a bit like starting pike fishing all over again, but it paid off eventually, with better results for less time.

The moon is the force behind the turning of the tides. In fact, the effect of the movement of the moon as it orbits around the earth dominates the existence of many other creatures – our own bodies are made up of 70% water, the same percentage as the water covering the surface of the earth incidentally. For this reason people have suggested that our own lives are, in some way, influenced by the moon – albeit subconsciously. So why should anglers be so skeptical when it is suggested that the moon might also influence the way in which pike feed?

Gradual change
As I write this, as each day goes by it is getting a little colder; not a sudden and dramatic drop in temperature, but a very slow drop as we head for winter proper. This steady drop in temperature is not enough to make pike go on a savage feeding frenzy (as has been pointed out, sudden and profound changes tend to do this) but it is enough to make them feed at a steady rate. Certainly more consistently than a few weeks back when the temperature was higher and the weather stable. They have to start feeding now otherwise they will lose condition quickly, and nature has a way of telling pike when and how much to feed, for this feeding is done on impulse, with no thought process behind it, this is what is meant by instinct, fish do not reason things out, they react solely to nature’s stimuli.

However, the picture I have just painted is by no means the full story. Pike do, of course, feed at times other than those I have just mentioned; a slight increase in air temperature after a long freeze up comes to mind, again moon phase periods (rise, sets etc.) are key periods in this instance that switch pike on.

Much of what I have said here is an oversimplification of a very complex subject. Even so, in my opinion, feeding periods can be largely explained, as a whole or broken down into individual aspects. However, you have to want to be able to understand it in the first place. Not everyone has this desire. I do, and for good reason.
If an angler like myself who wants to catch good pike consistently, but has very little spare time on his hands, then an in-depth understanding of feeding behaviour is crucial. You can be sitting right on top of a whole shoal of big pike, but you won’t catch them is they are not feeding.

Grit or wit?
Pike fishing is an individual pursuit; it’s what you get out of it personally that matters. You can catch a whole load of pike through pure grit and determination. You can catch as many pike simply by being extremely lucky and having good waters at your disposal. Or you can catch a whole load of good pike by working things out scientifically.

I have never been lucky when it comes to pike fishing, and as I’ve got older grit and determination becomes less appealing. So to catch pike I have tried the latter method.

This is perhaps the most difficult article I’ve ever tried to write, on a subject that is most difficult to explain. But understanding feeding behaviour is what motivates me as a pike angler. A short while back I urged pikers to go deeper into pike fishing, this is what I was getting at. The only way for us to move forward in our understanding is to look for the questions and then try to find the answers.
This article was first published in Pike & Predators magazine