Quick Strike questions

[Uncle Grump]

Hey guys

I've run in to a couple of things this weekend when I set out a tipup w/ a quick strike rig (commerical made - uses wire as the leader material. The hooks are the combo
hooks - a small single hook attached to a larger single hook - back to back).

The bait I was using was 4-6" suckers and shiners.

Q1) Using the shiners, the bait stayed alive after hooking the bait to the QS. Not so w/ the suckers - they died immediately.
Is the the bait or am I hooking up the minnow wrong? I had the bottom hook inserted along the backbone behind the head, while the second hook was closer to the fin on the back. I haven't had suckers die like that when using a single hook.

Q2) Once I put the dead suckers in the water, they hung head down. Normal?

Q3) Would I be better off making some of my own QS w/ mono vs wire for the leader material?

I did get one small northern - maybe 14-15" - not much biting where I was by St Cloud.

Thanks

UG

[Steve Foss]

UG:

I make my own with Sevenstrand wire and the double hooks you described. They're a lot like the commercial ones.

I hook the small hook on the terminal end through the sucker's lower lip so it and the larger hook are both exposed. I hook the sliding hook through the skin and some muscle by the dorsal fin (not all the way through the sucker's body because you might catch part of the spine) so the smaller hook tip is exposed. That gives you four exposed hooks, and I've had suckers live for hours on that rig (which means fishing is slow, darn it).

If you want the bait horizontal, hook the sliding hook farther up toward the front of the bait. I keep mine nose-down, both dead bait and live bait. I don't really think it matters. I also clip off the tail fin on live suckers, so they wiggle a lot but can't go fast enough to trip the flag or evade pike that are interested by don't feel like swimming hard.

Don't use mono for leader material. No matter how heavy the mono is, the sharp edges of a pike's teeth will slice it. Sevenstrand is very thin, even at 30-lb test, and virtually invisible. Cabela's sells it, as do a lot of other sporting goods/tackle stores.

The double hooks are very hard to find in the stores. If I can't find them, I just use small trebles, either leaving them intact or snipping off one hook on each treble.

Also, smaller hooks are easier on the bait, easier to set into the fish, and hold them just fine.

If you build your own and fish Minnesota, remember to put a little spinner on the leader above the second hook so it's a legal lure. No such rule in Wis., N.D.

As for making quick-strike rigs, there was a very long thread going a month or so ago about all the techniques, and someone even posted a pic. Likely you saw all that, being a regular on this site, but just a reminder in case you didn't.

Good luck.

------------------
Steve Foss
Superior, Wis.
[email protected]

[RK]

Hiya,
STF pretty much covered it (good post, btw), but just a couple thoughts. Suckers croak. They're about as wimpy as it comes as far as live bait. If you want something live, use shiners or redtails if you can find them. You can keep suckers lively a little longer by just barely nicking the hooks into the skin, but they'll still kick before long.

The good news is, it usually doesn't seem to matter whether it's live or dead with pike. They just eat 'em. Same goes with the bait hanging head-down. It really doesn't seem to make much of a difference.

If you want to experiment a little, see if you can find some frozen smelt at the grocery store or a fish market, and try those. Just let them hang down there and stink. Smelt are very oily, and the theory is the smell is a trigger when the bait is just hanging there. I can say for sure there have been times when stinky smelt have significantly outproduced suckers or shiners, and the nice thing is you don't have to haul a bait bucket - just a plastic bag with frozen smelt.

If you're serious about ice pike and you don't already have some, try wind tip-ups made by HT too. With a dead bait on a quick strike, they can be outstanding - fish the dead bait with no weight on the line, and the wind tip-up will lift the dead bait and flutter it around slowly.

Finally, as STF mentioned, if you are fishing in MN be sure to have a small spinner blade on your line so it meets the technical definition of a lure. It's a silly law frankly - it makes one of the most fish-friendly rigging options there is illegal, but a tiny spinner blade covers you, and doesn't change the effectiveness of the bait at all. I've never been sure whether or not most COs would really gig you for not having a spinner blade (there's one that will - I watched someone get a ticket for it on Round Lake this year) bit better safe than pi**ed.

Cheers,
RK

[Guest]

stf, what lb. test do you use for your rigs? I had a 'gator bite right thru a rig a couple of years ago, and I was using the 27 lb. Sevenstrand. And no,there was not a kink at the point where the fish bit thru. I had just checked it shortly before the flag went up.So at this point I'm a little skeptical about using Sevenstrand wire, but am willing to try it again.

[Steve Foss]

RK: I cut my teeth on pike tip-up fishing in N.D., where live suckers are not legal to possess while fishing. Almost everyone used frozen smelt and, where they could get them, frozen small herring. The herring you could get up to 10 inches around Devils Lake, while the smelt usually weren't over six inches. I've used large golden shiners a lot since moving to Wisconsin. Everyone seems to have them. They stay alive a lot better after hooking than suckers, too. I've run dead vs live bait a lot of time, too. Some days, dead bait outfishes live.

Rman: I'm surprised by the bite-through. I've never had a problem with bite-through on the stranded wires (commercial or tied by me). I use 30-lb test. It's not actually Sevenstrand brand, though, I just used that word because I figured more would recognize it. Not sure what brand I've got. I also have plastic-coated black leader material from Berkeley in 30-lb test, which is a lot more visible in the water and a good bit stiffer than bare stranded wire. While they both test the same, test isn't the issue with bite-through, and the coated stuff may be thick/strong enough to prevent it. Don't really think that puts off the pike, though. You might try some of each and see if the fish prefer one or the other. I use 20-lb and 25-lb mono for the main line on my tip-ups.

[G_man]

Read Adam Johnson's latest article on ice fishing northerns. He does a great job of describing the quick strike rig. @ adamjohnsonfishing.com

[Uncle Grump]

Thanks for the responses so far.

G-man: Where is the Adam Johnson article you refer to?

Thks

UG

[BLACKJACK]

Thanks Grump, I couldn't find that article on the HSOforum either...

[Steve Foss]

I couldn't, either.

[BLACKJACK]

Bump - Gman, where are you? Can you point us to that article?