What is your Best Tip-Up & Rod and Reel set-up for Northerns???

[Bob333]

Hello Anglers,,,I am a wondering what are the Best methods of fishing for Northerns thru the ice using a Tip-Up and a Rod & Reel...What kind of bait, live or dead. Line, leader set up, dept of water, minnows...What are your best ways of setting up. And being in stain waters...I am alittle new at Northerns and I can use your information this year... I Thank-You, for your information...

[Jarrod32]

A quick-strike rig of some sort under the tip-ups. In Minnesota, to have multiple hooks or a treble hook you need to have a 'lure' of some sort...it can't be a plain hook (or hooks). You will get some discussion, but usually a medium-sized spinner blade and a bead or two will suffice. You can get pre-made quick strike rigs at any decent sporting goods store.

Under a rod and reel, you can jig for them...use a jigging spoon of some sort tipped with a minnow or dead smelt. You will get a variation of opinions regarding the kind of jigging spoon to use, but I have always like using Mepps Cyclops for jigging northerns.

Just a couple general ideas off the top of my head...

[fishcast]

I have mostly just started fishing for northerns through the ice in the last couple years and have used both tip-ups and jigging, and it is a ton of fun.

I also like quick strike rigs under tip ups. I think I usually use ones with about size 4 or 6 treble hooks with about 4-8" suckers or shiners.

When jigging I use about a mh jig rod that is 28". I would maybe go longer, but sometimes I sight fish for pike and it would be about impossible with a longer rod. I use a slightly larger reel than usually used for ice fishing, and I put 14 fireline on it with a steel leader.

For jigging lures, my favorite are 1/2 oz northland bucktail airplane jigs. I also like jigging raps and chubby darters, and I am sure spoons would work well to. I have also had a bunch of pike come in on rattle traps. However, when pike are slower big panfish lures would probably work best. I would say to be creative with lures, sometimes I think the pike are just curious. Sometimes I have seen pike hit about everything you lower into the hole, but other times they will come in and only stare down your lure before leaving or just nip at your lure.

For locations I usually will start around the same areas I would be looking for panfish, and I would also recomend to keep moving, many times I have seen pike fly in as soon as I lower my lure into the water.

By the way if you can find a nice clear lake, sight fishing for pike I would say is about as fun as it gets when a big pike comes in.

[Pikeslayer]

Seven tines mounted on a 5 foot handle(spear)

[Steve Foss]

I just use simple Polar HT tip-ups and tie two small jingle bells to each flag so I have sound as well as sight to tell me I've got a flag. I also use the circular soft foam hole covers to make things easier.

My line is 50 lb Fireline tied directly to quick-strike rigs I tie myself with a couple heavy split shot just above the rig to keep those frozen baits from occasionally floating. With a quick-strike rig you set the hook as soon as you get to the tip-up, which means virtually all fish are hooked shallow because they haven't had time to swallow the bait. Pike are not hook shy, and shallow hooking makes it much easier to release them unharmed. With a growing number of lakes with slot limits in Minnesota, that's a big consideration.

My bait of choice is dead smelt, cisco or herring, depending on what part of the country is being fished. Live suckers are very popular and are good bait, but I've found in the last 10 years that dead bait outfishes live bait for me at least 2-1, and sometimes 3- or 4-1, so I leave the live bait behind. Active, neutral and even negative fish will hit a deadbait, though it takes a long time sometimes for a neutral or negative pike to stare down a bait before sucking it in. Live suckers or other bait will attract all the active pike, but neutral pike don't snap it up that often, and there's just too much wiggling for negative pike.

Far less hassle with deadbait, too. Dipping into a freezing minnow bucket to grab a live sucker isn't a lot of fun on a cold windy day even with a bait net, and you've also gotta worry about that bait bucket freezing. With frozen smelt/cisco/herring, it's easy as can be.

I position one bait about half way up the water column and the other about a foot or two off the bottom. Best day by myself with two tip-ups rigged this way was 29 flags and 15 fish landed.

That's the way I do it, but there are lots of different ways that work to fish pike.

[vermilionwally]

Im also going to try some pike fishing with tip ups this year. Is it more effective to just have 2 tip ups rigged rather than a tip up and jig with another rod? So dead smelt really outfish the live suckers?

[bgreen82]

where is the best place to get frozen smelt in the southeast metro?

[hanson]

Dead vs Live is a very interesting discussion when we are talking baits for pike under the ice.

I'm sort of in the middle with a slight preference towards deadbaits.

Live Golden Shiners and Sucker minnows do work great. Dead Smelt, dead herring, and dead cisco work very well too.

What I like to do is fish live baits early in the year (now) and fish dead baits later in the year (late ice).

What starts to happen throughout winter is fish die and eventually float towards the surface. Some of these fish die for natural reasons but alot are due to mishandling by anglers. Pike will adapt to this as they know they can cruise under the ice and have easy pickings of dead, dying, or wounded fish right under the ice.

I had read a very interesting article many years ago about a group of anglers fishing with tip-ups & deadbait right under the ice in 30' of water on Lake of the Woods and doing very well for pike, and big pike at that. They were fishing near some very popular reefs where there were large concentrations of fisherman. Small walleye and sauger were being caught 30' down and had a hard time being released due to the expansion of their air bladders. The pike had learned this was a very easy meal which kept accumulating directly under the ice. Easy meal!

There are a number of valid topics when discussing tip-ups for pike: location, depth, and bait selection. Get all 3 right and its magic!!

[vermilionwally]

The lake i do most of my pike fishing on seems to be loaded with hammerhandles. Seems like most of the lakes in my area are. Would smelt be too big for the smaller pike or would they be ok? I would say the average pike i catch on this lake are anywhere from 18-21 inches or so with an occasional fish going about 25. Ive caught one at 30" and had a guy i was fishing with get a 37" out of there once so there are a few nice ones in there.

[vermilionwally]

How do you hook your smelt on the quickstrike rigs?