The proud and predatory pike as King of the River is truly a sporting fish. There is no other day than that of the one immediately after Xmas feasting, which is more practical, popular and successful for an angler's outing after pike. For Boxing Day some will choose the colourful tradition of the Hunt and Hounds to follow and protest over their freedom of choice or animal rights, but a day’s piking holds no such contentious issues.

The choice of venue to pursue the selected quarry is wide and various in its demeanour and location. There is little to choose between still and running water, although in the latter, a shoal of roach penned up in their winter migration habitat is the best possible formula for success. Here a natural larder for Esox exists and around Bungay perhaps the deeper Falcon Meadow and Wainford Maltings swims will produce better than others. Small shallow runs like on Stow Fen Earsham where the fishing is free can be good too though.

So here we are, man against the beast, pitting our sporting skills without the baying of hounds or clarion call of the trumpet. Our costumes will be moderate and likely well-soiled in comparison to the huntsman’s brilliant reds. Sombre in our array to melt in with the surroundings we ignore the horse and hearty heraldry and opt for the stillness of the riverbank and the song of a bird. Maybe the flight of a kingfisher or soft greys of a woodpigeon and its white barred wings, will grace our live-and-let-live day. For these days no longer is the Pike a victim of the stew pot as we view preservation with education and respect for the environment.

There will be no fleet of foot for us or rowdy tally-ho as we quietly stalk our prey with gentle casts. Angling’s artful craft, practising our skills with the lure as it is trolled and tricked through the water. Co-ordination between eye and hand with deft finger control struggling through cold numbed nails by the morning’s end. We wander from swim to swim looking for a feature or two to hold a fish. An overhanging bush, a raft of floating debris or the slacker flow of a widening piece. We try our luck in several of these with patience and persistence, but the chosen and trusted method is the same.

The cast covers the spokes of a wheel for the pattern of direction, alighting down stream first to a position of ten o’clock from our bank-side stance. As the retrieves progress searching out our prey in the river they pass through the gradient of the hours until we reach upstream for our final pull through at the almost three o’clock position. Then back to the first cast area, this time slowing the turn of the reel handle, then quickening it sharply, making our artificial bait wobble and take on the guise of an ailing or sickened fish. The cruel pike loves such a weakness to make full its stomach and sharp-toothed mouth. Next cast we jiggle the top of the rod, altering the tension between tip and lure, trying to tease and entice any fish lying still in the stream.

A lone pike senses with its body the passing plug. Then sees from the eye a movement to both interest and attract it. In a slow menacing way she moves cautiously and with stealth towards the lure. Holding back a little to check its reality the great lady pauses in position for consideration. We fool her as we slacken the line and the false fish drops three or four inches lower in the water. Truly mighty power in the strong tail and the perfectly set pectoral fins launch the powerhouse body forward with a surge and the small dorsal fin holds steady the charge as well as any racing yacht’s rudder. Her cavernous mouth opens and clamps on the plug and the instant she feels it’s false hardness her head shakes to rid itself of the trebles.

The surface explodes as the body thrashes, head out leering at us in churlish challenge. No small male jack this as the weighty body strives for the bottom giving our eight-pound line the cause to sing in the light sharp breeze. A bow wave laps the edge as her back bends to submerge. Runs are slow, boring deep, then change to speed; out to the centre ground and fight us fairly with rod bending lunges we feel right down in the cork handle. Our heartbeat quickens and the adrenaline flows as we hang on and the clutch clicks away with unstripped line. Steadily we begin to apply more pressure and slowly start to establish our control. Before long the great head breaks the surface with the mouth slightly open, and we are almost there as she turns a little on her side to slide over our landing net.

Carefully we unhook or prize on the soft wet grass, although the master now, our hands still shaking a little from the excitement of it all. She is ours for a minute or so as the scales show fourteen pounds, and we pause; to wonder; at the beauty of her dappled markings and colour. Then, placed head into the stream, and held steady for a while; she slips away gracefully to live implanted on our memory and maybe reward us on another fine bright East Anglian day. Happy Xmas.