Tip up tips

[Steve Foss]

Yeah, you nailed me. I am him.

[Cooter]

I like the wood Beaver Dams for northerns and the Polars for walleyes - not sure if the Beaver Dams are worth the extra $$ these days though, they are spendy!

[RandyR]

I have switched to circle hooks and they work very well.

I kept one pike for baking last winter. I was distracted by a good panfish bite and the flag had been up a while. The hook was right in the corner of the mouth, but when I was filleting the pike afterward I found the 5 inch shiner I had used for bait was entirely in the fishes stomach. The hook did not stick until reaching the corner of the mouth, it worked perfectly. You don't "set" a circle hook, you take up the slack and apply steady pressure, the hook sets itself.

We stumbled onto circle hooks live bait fishing fall river smallmouth bass. I have never gut hooked a fish using a circle hook. Give them a try, you will like it.

[Maximum12]

Great topic.

Not only am I in the market for another tip-up (I only have one - what's wrong with me?), but I'm always afraid of deep-hooking pike on the tip-up & end up setting the hook too fast to avoid hooking them deeply. I've just added circle hooks to my shopping list, I never really understood what they were before. Thanks!

[Random guy]

I've been reading up on circle hooks and its a whole new world for sucker fishing musky or pike. A way to fish them with suckers and reduce the chance of gut hooks and hurt fish. I am a little skeptical if they will work in a pikes mouth as well as they do in a catfish. Only one way to find out- go fishing!

[RK]

HIya,

Personally, I have my reservations about circle hooks for pike , and they're even stronger on using them for muskies.

I've used them extensively for walleyes and have used them as well for other species ranging from carp to halibut. There's no doubt they are effective in some cases. I use them a lot both winter and summer for walleyes, for example. But with pike and muskies, anything that involves swallowing the hook makes me a little nervous. To me a quick strike is a sure thing. My hooking percentage is extremely high, and in terms of how easy fish are to release, they do a lot less damage than most artificials. From talking to some muskie guys in WI who experimented pretty exensively with circle hooks, they had pretty uneven results. Some fish were hooked perfectly, some got off completely, and they did experience some gullet hooking.

For pike under tip-ups, there are practical reasons why I prefer quick strikes too though. With circles there's a real unknown about how long to let fish run. Fish will sometimes run quite a ways before chomping down whatever it is they grabbed. Also, the run also means more chances for the fish to realize something's not right, whether it's feeling resistance from the line hanging up on weeds or whatever. With quick strikes, as soon as they have it, you have them. There's little left to chance, and you can hit them right away.

I'm not giving up on circle hooks for pike, and I do plan on experimenting with them some more, but for me at least the jury's still out on them. Be interested to hear what others experience with them this winter.

Cheers,

RK

[hanson]

The problem that I can see with circle hooks for pike under tip-ups is the pike absolutely has to have the hook in its mouth for a circle hook to function properly.

If you are fishing with a 10-12" sucker minnow, where do you hook the minnow? Tail, Dorsal, Head? Remember that you only have 1 hook in your bait.

When you "set" the hook, and remember you don't really set the hook with circles, just hold the line firm and let the pike swim off, hopefully the hook will set itself. But what happens if the pike doesn't have the end of the bait with the hook in it? Lost fish, right?

At least with a QS rig, you have a treble in the middle of the bait and in the tail and you can give that pike heck immediately after he/she takes off with the bait. Sooner the better with a QS.

[RonZych]

Hey,

How about some pictures of your quick strike rigs? Maybe include some measurements and hook sizes?

[Random guy]

This is what my set up looks like only I bend one hook on each treble down to hook into the bait so I can keep the trebles aligned better.

[RK]

Hiya,

I make all my own QS rigs for ice pike (for fall muskies too for that matter, though that's a different setup). That having been said, the one in the photo Jon posted is real similar to the ones I make for myself.

I start with either 20 or 27 lb. uncoated stranded wire. Whether it's 20 or 27 depends on which I happen to grab out of my box of wire - both do fine.

The QS rigs I use for ice pike have an adjustable front hook to handle various sizes of bait. I start with a small swivel, then slide on a small spinnerblade like a #00 or #1 so it's legal in MN (don't get me started on the stupidity of that particular rule...). Next, slide on a leader sleeve like you'd use if you were doing crimp connections. Then, slide on a bead, the first hook, and another bead. Run the free end of the wire through the sleeve again to make a loop with the beads and hook hanging from it. The beads help protect the wire from getting piched by the sleeve when you're fighting a fish. Finally, attach the trailing hook.

Both the swivel and trailing hook are attached by wrapping the wire with a forceps clamped to the tag end. If you do them right wrapped connections are far stronger than a crimp, especially on lighter wire.

As for hooks, smaller is better. I generally use #8 trebles, even on smelt and ciscoes up to 10" or so. For smaller live baits like 5-6" shiners I'll drop down to a #6 sometimes. I think - m totally convinced actually - that smaller hooks give me better hooking percentages than larger hooks, and I get way fewer drops. I strongly prefer hooks with a wide hook gap like the Gamakatsu EWB or Mustad Ultra Point Triple Grip. Both have huge hook gaps, and they're nasty sharp. They really are awesome hooks. I made up some rigs with red hooks this year, just to see if that makes a difference. I'll be mildly surprised if there's a noticeable difference though. Another hook option is a Partridge VB hook. These hooks were invented by English pike guru Vic Bullers specifically for dead baiting with QS rigs for pike. They are a wierd sort of double hook, with one hook being standard size, and another exactly opposite it on the shank that's about half size. The small hook goes in the bait. Until now have been hard to find unless you ordered them from England. But I just saw recently that Mustad has started making them for sale in the US. Haven't seen them anywhere in stores yet, but I plan on calling someone I know at Mustad to see if I can get my greasy mitts on some. My supply ran out a few years back and I'd love to get some more. They're wonderful dead baiting hooks, and deadly hookers.

You can use the same wire and wrapping technique to make leaders for jigging pike too. Just put a small snap on the end. I use them a lot when I'm walleye fishing on lakes with a lot of small pike. Cuts the bite offs down to nothing (hate having a $4 Jigging Rapala get cut off) and the walleyes don't seem to care much, especially on swimming jigs.

I have messed around with knotable leader material like Tyger Braid some the last year or so. It works fine, though I think I still prefer plain uncoated wire. Of the knotable leader material, the Cortland Toothy Critter wire seems to be the better of the bunch, but they're all pretty decent.

Just some thoughts...

Cheers,

RK

[Doop]

Great topic! I have a question, when using quick strike rigs and flag goes up...i know you are supposed to set the hook "quick" but what if the fish is going 90 miles an hour...is it better to wait for the fish to slow down?

[Steve Foss]

No, set it right away. With a QS, odds are the fish has at least one set of hooks in its mouth as soon as it takes the bait. In that situation you don't jerk it, though. Just stopping a fish on the run will set the hook.

[Gus]

Anybody else get goosebumps just thining about that spool spinning wildly as you run for it??!! This weekend can't come fast enough!