They were interested enough to follow the lure. Interested enough in one or two cases to follow it a snout's length behind. I tried different lures. I tried different retrieves. I'm 99.9 per cent certain no-one's fished this bit of river for ages, so the fish can't have been spooked.
Maybe in the clear water, they had time to give the different lumps of wood I threw their way a good look. Maybe they just weren't in a feeding mood. But anyone who thinks pike are daft is barking up the wrong tree on the strength of today.
I learned a few things all the same. The main one being how many different things you can make a Shad Rap do, besides just chuck it out and reel it back in again. When the sun broke through the clouds building over the Fens, I could clearly see what the lures were doing. A downwards tap on the rod makes a Shad Rap keel and flash. A sharp upward flick sends it down with a waggle of its tail.
While neither were to the pikes' liking when it came to having a pop at one, I'll remember that one for when I next go lure fishing. Another thing I learned today was it only takes the slightest bit of weed to mask the diving vane or foul the hooks to completely muffle the lure's action.
After a large boat went by, it left a trail of bits of bur reed and cabbage, which the lure caught every other chuck. At this point, after the best part of three hours, I decided it was time for a re-think. Glancing off a bridge on another river on the way home was another object lesson.
There was a shoal of roach - hundreds, maybe thousands-strong flitting in and out between the sunlight and the shade. And there, beneath them in the clear water, were a pair of pike around the 8bs mark almost side-by-side.
The roach went about their business ignoring the killers in their midst. The pike just sat there, ignoring their fodder, with just the flicker of a fin or the occasional ripple of their gills.
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