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What should I have done?


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Today I was fishing some really shallow, gin clear water (about 1ft) and I spotted what was probably almost a 40" pike, I casted a white tube to it and twitched it past the fish a couple times but it got annoyed and swam off. My first mistake was using a wire leader which I'm sure he saw, but I was wondering if there was something else (besides a fly) that I would have been able to try to get him?

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Floro leaders to start. Quick strike rigged sucker. (Cuz I know you had one handy) With those options exhausted I'd go real small to try the dinner mint theory(I'm full but I'll still try an after dinner mint)It will still probably ignore it but atleast you've got a nice anecdote about pike fishing now.

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Unweighted soft plastic. 4" power minnow or gulp!

 

Pitch it way past your sighted pike and work it back to your fish super slow. If you can get the fish to turn and look at your bait before it gets close, you can trigger the strike with a really small movement. If he doesnt turn and look on that first retrieve, same bait but try from a different casting position. Remember to work it real slow.... let it sit on bottom.

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I've fished pike many times over the years in clear skinny water and they can be frustrating. My go-to technique, stumbled upon by accident, is a 3 or 4" black Berkley Power Leech on a light jighead. Light line and no leader either. Most times these fish are hooked in the corner of the mouth.

 

It just seems like they can't refuse it, the angling equivalent of an after dinner mint.

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You have 2 new lures coming your way.

As for the sunning pike or musky its generally a good sine.(the feed is on) But sometimes it doesn't matter what you put in front of them in July and early August.

They just get so lazy and finicky that it drives me nuts.

 

1ft of water is to shallow to throw a minnow at and anything with weight is pointless so your left with a long shot cast on lite line or trying top water casted past and worked slowly into the strike range.

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Pike aren't very picky, I doubt your leader had anything to do with it. He wasn't hungry and that was about it.

 

Agreed, I've never really bought into the idea that seeing a line or a leader will scare a fish. If it did, I think the sight of a bunch of really mean looking hooks would spook them more.

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She may have had a big white sucker in her gut and was trying to speed up her metabolism... In that case, it wouldn't have mattered what you threw at her. I'm thinking if you saw her she most likely would have made you.. Spooked or not, she was not going to eat.

 

If she was in the shallows but in ambush mode, a subtle twitch with a low profile bait like a bunny leech or soft plastic swim bait might have done the trick.

 

cheers

HD

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Tough one. I'd throw a 4in natural coloured jerkbait on 20lb fluoro. Or some kind of very subtle plastic you can tantalize them with.

What's that pike doing in a foot of water in the summer? My guess would be she's messed up and not into eating anything.

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Pike aren't very picky, I doubt your leader had anything to do with it. He wasn't hungry and that was about it.

YUP

 

Though, on some days, I've seen those shallow lock jawed pricks hit a scum frog..... And bite it off.

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