Pike feeding

I fished a tributary of the Trent the other day with a couple of mates, sun beaming down , the tributary only 15 to 20 foot across and only a yard deep, streamer weed was straddling the many clear patches. It was the type of water where you expect to see barbel or chub , although the flow wasn't particularly fast. The polarised glasses made it very easy to see the whole stretch in front of me with a bridge 10 yards to the right and both banks tree lined so we just melted into the background and cast the ondex under the bridge and retrieved relatively slowly.
From 3 different directions, after just the one cast , 3 pike appeared waiting perhaps within 6 to 8 foot of us . The biggest was around 5 or 6 pounds, there was one around 4 and one around 2 . The next cast saw the 2 pounder snaffle the spinner and after a quick release we were amazed to see the other 2 pike just sat there albeit a little further away.
Now, instead of casting straight back in, I went and got a sardines tail and free lined it sink and draw ( ish) . The cast was perfect , the bait sat central in the waters clear patch on the bottom, I didn't have to twitch it. The bigger of the two pike moved toward it , the tail came up vertical the head straight down as if doing a headstand , absolutely amazing , it was awesome to see. For some reason I have never envisaged pike getting their heads down to feed, I only ever think of the pike either striking above or more often horizontally when feeding. The tail was actually wafting out of the water ! Believe it or not , it got off that time , spat the bait out on the strike , but we landed it 5 minutes later. This was followed by the 4 pounder that went on to do the same thing , head down feeding vertically in the water.
I know they were only small fish but It gave us so much pleasure, to actually see and stalk them. The fish were part of a 6 pike catch and a 3 pound zander also graced the net.
Incidentally, the 10 to 15 pounder that happened to swim past me an hour or so later, stopped briefly to sniff my sardine that I put on the end of its nose with a little underarm cast, might as well have laughed at me as it wasn't interested and headed upstream away from me.
I will get her next time !

Its great to get a little insight into their world. Nice one That got my Pike juices flowing a little lol.

Sounds very interesting. I love to stalk when fishing but have yet to do it for my pike fishing. I guess that tends to be cos I am always casting my pike baits into the dark, slack holes.
Sounds good that I may do some stalking for them one day!