tip-up bait live or dead?

[masterpuppet]

When using tip up for Pike do most of you put dead bait right on bottom and live bait just under ice or the other way around?

[tipup]

I have heard of people useing both live and dead. I personally use live suckers or shiners. As far as where to put the bait, My buddy puts his 1-3' under the ice, I do it the opposite I put my a foot or two off of the bottom. It will probably be different for you also. Try many different ways and see what works best for you and your lake. The good thing is you can use two tip-ups so try and set both of them up different in the same area and see what works best. Good luck and lets us know how you turn out.

[Deitz Dittrich]

MP- All of the above... I have used both... and have put it everywhere in the water columb. It really depends on the cover you are fishing..and the weather. Somedays its just a test.. try something for 15 mins and change it if it didn't work.

[coldmark]

Big, live suckers a foot off the bottom. I like doing it this way because a big walleye might be interested too.

[CNCMike]

Quote:

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Big, live suckers a foot off the bottom. I like doing it this way because a big walleye might be interested too.

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Exactly! That is how and why I always do it too.

[Pleasant]

I like to use live sucker minnows. Normally 18inches to couple of feet off the bottom. Same reason as above, in case Grandma Walleye would like to dance.

Old timers tell me in most cases fishing for northern pike if the minnow is in the water a pike will swim up and hit it.

I have had that actually happen accidentally dropped a minnow in the hole and bang northern had it a few inches bellow the ice.

Always fun on a dead stick to site fish with the bait 3-4 feet down when that big old pike slides in.

Lynn J.

[Steve Foss]

Well, first I'm going to put in a plug for deadbait for pike, then say how I fish it.

I've been working hard for pike with tip-ups for 11 years, fishing extensively in North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin during that time.

Over the first five years, deadbait (smelt, cisco or herring, depending on what's available where I was) outfished live bait (6-8 inch suckers most often) for me three or four to one, and for the last six years I've rarely bothered with all the hassle associated with transporting and keeping live bait for pike tip-ups.

Every once in awhile I'll cart along some live bait and test things out again and, sure nuff, the deadbait wins by a huge margin every time. My supposition is that active pike will take any bait they find, but neutral and negative pike won't take large live bait nearly as often as deadbait. At first I though it may be that I was fishing live bait wrong and the deadbait right, but I've fished alongside live bait users a number of times and the deadbait continues to be much more productive.

So that's been my experience and perpsective. Sure is nice to bring along a ziplock bag with the day's bait in it and not to have to fight to keep suckers either from freezing or from getting too warm.

Anyway, most of the time I fish one tip-up half way up the water column and the second one about a foot off the bottom. Some days one gets most of the action, some days the other. If I'm in an area with live green weeds that don't come up to the surface, I'll fish one just above the top of the weeds. Out in North Dakota, where four lines are legal, there was plenty of opportunity to blanket the water column, with one laying on the bottom, one a foot off, one half way up and another just under the ice.

[NAMASafetyDirector]

I would agree with catfish. I grew up fishing pike in N.D. and predominantly used smelt as bait. I would keep them thawed out but cold in a quart jar. As far as hooking them I would either use a Norweigan hook (old school I know!) or I would run a treble hook up through the belly with 1 hook exposed out either side then hook it to the leader making sure the bait hangs level. Depth- normally anywhere from a foot to two feet off the bottom depending on the water depth and what was on the bottom.

[Dances with Walleye]

I usually go with a large live shiner within a foot of bottom... Because I'm targeting Walleye and figure slopping in a pike will do. (I also set this rig up with a flouro leader.)

If I am on a lake where I'm targeting pike... If I'm placing it on the weed line... I'm using large live bait... If I'm placing it in the weeds... THEN I've found dead bait, at a depth appropriate to where the stalks begin to get leafy works best.

It seems to be because the pike that are running in the thick weeds don't want to chase all the schools of little minnows around... (In the end it's still about getting the most food for the least effort.) So when the key in on an easy meal like a dead minnow hanging in an open spot, they'll take it.

But if I'm out in more open waters/weed line itself... Live bait seems to fish best.

I think the most important part is LARGE...

The last thing you want to do is put some scrawny minnow on the hook and have a score of false flags from pan fish pecking and slurping the minnow.