best place too put a hook in a northern

A friend of mine, and I, are new to ice fishing and he and another couple guys were fishing through the ice for northerns. This place is a back water area along the Cedar River and Kevin was catching a lot of nice northerns right before ice up. Yesterday they used another guys tipups and baited up with chubs and they never got a hit or so they thought. They had 5 tipups in the water all with chubs and when they pulled them up all the chubs were gone. They suspect the tipups weren’t working right so they are going again today and reposition the line where they think the line should go through the tip up. I told Kevin it shouldn’t matter much if you put the hook through the tail or near the dorsal or near the mouth. I suspected the tipups weren’t setup right. I think the position of the hook in the chub might be minor but the question is where the best place to put the hook for the best hookups, tail, dorsal, or lip area, for you guys that use live bait and tipups for northerns, whats your suggestions for a few novices?

What type of hook are you using? I like a Mustad 2/0 Wide Gap hook. Insert the point right in front of the dorsal fin, run it toward the head, then bring it back out with just the barb sticking out.

To answer your original question: Inside the mouth.

suzuki wrote:

To answer your original question: Inside the mouth.

What he said.

suzuki wrote:

To answer your original question: Inside the mouth.

You beat me to it.

I have a tip up that jams on one side-I have the good side marked with a sharpie-
I like my tippies to feed line smoothly, so I quickly test them in my basement,
I’ll spray with wd_40 (some say this is also a fish attractant!) I have caught walleyes and even crappies on tip ups so I can make those things run well-Some might think that is too fussy for a pike but hey a few minutes tweeking and testing can make a difference-Think pike are all aggressive and dumb?Well then you are probably only catching pike under 5lbs-oh the hook for bait around 6” I would use a mid-sizes treble, one hook perpendicular to the body behind the dorsal
now get revenge on those pike they ate your minnows and are laughing!
good Luck