Tulibee and Pike

[Whateverzbitin]

When ice fishing do you approach pike fishing any differently when on a lake with tulibee. Be spacific by time of winter if you feel it applies. By defenition the lake will probably be good sized and deep if it has tullies in MN. Although there are many smaller lakes deep enough to contain them.

[20lbSloughShark]

Deeper, open water structure, and right under the ice. Definatley do not be afraid of some really huge baits, as pike are generally bigger, and used to big bait.

[Finlander]

I caught a 10lb. pike that had 2 10" tulibees in its stomach and it still hit my 8" sucker minnow!

So, go large for large pike!

[slipperybob]

5-10 feet under the ice works just fine.

[20lbSloughShark]

Just wanted to add that as a pike fisherman, you need to switch your thinking to how far down you want your bait, not how far off the bottom. Even in dirty water, with pike 2' off the bottom, they can easily see a bait a foot under the ice (dark bait, white ice). It is nearly impossible to see a dark colored bait over a dark bottom lake even a few feet under a suspended pike. Long story short, its next to impossible to set a bait too high in the water column, but very easy to set it too low. I set all my tip ups 1-3' under the ice, unless I am fishing really deep. From what I heard, pike love tulibee and will often set up outside of a school of them. The only time I fished a "tulibee" lake, I was in over 35' and about 5' under the ice. I did ok, but there is a lot more moving and searching. Around the annandale-buffalo area most if not all lakes are "traditional" lakes, meaning pike are eating suckers, perch, shiners, etc. I spend my time shallow. Find the bait, you find the predators.