pike through the ice

1) Pikes eyes are always looking up because they are predators so if you are using live minnows, make sure you put them several feet above the bottom. I am not afraid to fish 5 feet down in 30 feet of water because many times the biggest pike are roaming on schools of ciscos or whitefish. They see a distressed fish out of the school they are going to eat it. If you are on a lake without whitefish or ciscos, they are following suspended schools of whatever is in the lake and the same thing goes.

2) Circle hooks! Those big pike are really easy to hook on circle hooks and if you want to release them its the safest way to go. I use a 5/0 with an 18 inch steel leader using heavy northern suckers. I use rod and reel combos put on a thing called an Arctic Warrior. I love the battle and it beats respooling a tip up. Even with circle hooks those big ones will swallow it, but its a quick snip of the leader and the fish will dissolve the one hook easier than 3. It will still be able to feed because the throat wont be closed off.

3) For dead bait such as smelt, the pike do have an excellent ability to "taste" or "smell" oily dead bodies such as herring, smelt or whitefish. I prefer laying them on the bottom or just below the ice because that is where they naturally are. Dead fish either float or sink to the bottom. I use circle hooks for these also.

4) Remember one thing with circle hooks if you have never used them, just reel, DO NOT SET THE HOOK!!! If you set the hook the fish is buh-bye. If you just reel, 9-10 times you will have them hooked in the corner of the mouth.

5) I always fish off of some sort of structure, i.e. points inside turns, tributaries, reefs, humps, whatever it may be.

I fish the west shore of the bay for them in usaully 3 or less feet of water.I make my own leaders some with blades and beads and some plain.#6 OR #8.Also get dead smelt they love it.But most important thing is use something different on each tip-up.

I use 25# floro leaders with a number 6 or 8 hook. Green or red treble hook. What i do differently than i think alot of people is i set up in about 1.5-6' of water. The biggest pike ive caught was about 41 in 1.5 of water. It was very hard to get the fish up the hole.. Needless to say i had a very wet right arm having to reach down the hole to grab his head and pull it up through.. The lakes i fish dont typically have much for structure or weed lines. And shallow water has worked much better than deeper.

Make my own leaders out of braided wire and use the largest shinners i can find if im going for the hogs. Set them in 6 to 12 feet where ever the weeds are about halfway from the ice to the top of the weed. with a number 6 or 4 treble

I've always had real good luck using 20lb mono or 30lb Fireline for a leader. For a hook I usually use #4 or 6 trebles. I usually set the minnow a foot under the ice and I catch alot of decent sized northerns. I try to aim for 8-12 feet of water, but I move deeper or shallower if I don't get any flags within 1/2 hour of setting them. Needless to say, if the fishing is slow, I'm usually drilling alot of holes.

For pike, I use aa steel leader. I put the bait down to about a foot above the bottom. This also means a foot above the bottom weeds. Having a vexilar makes it really easy.

I use a small bluegill or perch for bait. The smaller the gill, the better.

We use anywhere from #4 to #10 trebles for pike, and both mono & steel leaders. I'm trying out putting beads & blades on a couple of tipups this year. No fish on them yet, but it's early. As far as depth, we set our minnows anywhere from ~8" to halfway up the water column. I think the deepest depth we fish is about 20ft.

It should also be noted that we don't catch as many fish that we would like.