Pike or musky stalking my boat??

[concant]

So I was bass fishing today and had found myself a nice little basshole. Was hooked into a little smally and had him up next to my 14' aluminum. He did a head shake next to the boat and threw the hook . As I watched him slowly regain his senses and swim back to the deep I notice the ghostly silhouette of a large pike/muskie (guessing around 40" maybe..hard to tell) swimming slowly maybe 5' deep and maybe 6' off to the side of my boat. Now I've seen this before fighting up small fish. Pike will come up to investigate but this one was different. He seemed to not care about the bass slowly swimming away but he just wanted to be around my boat. He kept the same depth and slowly made his way towards the front of my boat and started to swim down and i lost sight of him.
Thinking he was gone I got ready to go back to the bass and I saw he'd returned to the other side of my boat. He was closer this time but I still couldn't make out the markings to identify him. I started to think maybe I could catch him so keeping my eye on him I quickly started to tie up one of my bigger pike baits. Takes me a few minutes and all this time he keeps the orbit around my boat.
When i get my setup ready he's around the front of the boat and starting to swim deep again. I cast out and start bringin the bait in front of him and I can see his demeanour change when he sees the lure but he doesn't want it, turns, dives and I never see him again.
All in all it was very exciting but strange as I've never seen a pike/Muskie behave that way. Maybe just curious? The whole ordeal lasted maybe 10-15 minutes. Could have been less. Felt like a long time.

Anyways, that's my story of the day. Anybody else have something like that happen?

P.s. I caught this beauty smallmouth later that evening so all in all it was a good day

 

[AaronKrick]

In heavily fished areas sometimes they will follow boats because they know that food is there, including distressed fish being reeled in.

 

[concant]

Yeah I've seen that before but I've never had one just hang around so long.

 

[BASSMASTER19]

might have been a pike, it wouldve been pretty rare to see a muskie like that

 

[alwayscatching]

might have been a pike, it wouldve been pretty rare to see a muskie like that

Actually it was more likely to be a muskie around the boat rather than a pike. Muskie tend to follow the boats and it is a very common thing(hence the figure 8 technique when muskie fishing). The size alone tells me it was more likely a muskie. I have had many occasions of muskie attack my bass or panfish when being reeled in.

 

[Nick]

yes, something like that has happened to me. I also was fishing for bass when a musky swam out from under my boat and actually bit the blades on my front mount trolling motor, he was about 35 inches or so. I have also seen on many times where pike or musky will swim beside my motor and watch it.

 

[BASSMASTER19]

Huh I didn't know that, thanks alwayscatching

 

[concant]

yes, something like that has happened to me. I also was fishing for bass when a musky swam out from under my boat and actually bit the blades on my front mount trolling motor, he was about 35 inches or so. I have also seen on many times where pike or musky will swim beside my motor and watch it.

Yeah I was telling this story to my buddy and he said he had one come up and try to bite his trolling motor.

 

[ad_cole]

I 've had pike do the same thing before multiple multiple times. This is an interesting story. About a month ago I was fishing up north. I know the lake somewhat well but had never experienced anything over 20+ inch pike in there. Three of us were fishing out of our aluminum boat, we had three lines out the back while trolling.My buddy being the idiot he is casts his line across the other anglers line. Naturally he reels in and hooks my buddies line. He then pulls the lure up to the boat and attempts to untangle the lines. He cant get them untangled so he decides he will cut his line and re rig. As he pulls his knife out we look into the water and see a 36 in pike casually take the lure which is still in the water. We immediately grab the net and try and net it. Unfortunately with all the commotion from our surprise catch my buddy cuts the wrong line and the fish narrowly escapes the net and takes off forever. All night long in any shallow water we had pike coming up to our boat and checking it out. No where near our lures, I had never seen anything like it. Right when we got to my favourite spot my buddy says dude a 36 incher just swam up to the boat. Id never seen them in there so I wrote him off as telling another fishing story. I ended up pulling in a 24 inch and 30 inch within an hour with many other fish seen. They had no qualms whatsoeverwith checking us and the boat out. It was one of the best and most entertaining nights ive ever had fishing.