Hide & seek & funny jaws

Winter is moving in here in The Netherlands. To us pike addicts this is an important milestone. Fish can be found almost everywhere during the rest of the season, but when it gets colder they tend to flock together and the pike will follow their prey. So if you can find them, you may well catch several pike within a short timespan. We were hoping for such a feast a couple of days ago, but to no avail. All Harmen-Jan and I caught were a few solitary pike. Rather small ones really, surely nothing to brag about. But two things are worth mentioning: firstly, all pike had an upper jaw that was shorter than the lower jaw. Just look at the pictures to see what I mean (lousy pictures that were shot with a mobile phone because Einstein forgot to put a decent battery in his hotshot professional three month's wages supercamera).

Most pike fishermen have seen it before I suppose. But since all pike were caught in the same body of water, one might assume that the pike were somehow related and "funny jaw disorder" is maybe hereditary. Looking at Harmen-Jan I think it may even be contagious. Any readers that go by the name of Darwin? Step forward please.

Secondly, every single pike was caught under or very close to a bridge. Once we saw through these hide-and-seek tactics, we picked up a pike at nearly every bridge. Isn't that what all (fly) fishermen do, looking for patterns I mean?

Erik