quick strike rig info/tips, jigging info?

I’ve been doing some reading online lately and keep hearing about the quick strike rigs.

Well after what I thought was a decent assumption of what this was I made one. Finding guys talking pike and using flurocarbon (40lb p line) and a pair of hooks one left to slide freely the other tied in on the end of the line.

We put this to the test today, one tipup with a regular steel leader, the other with the Flurocarbon quickstrike rig. I did double his flags today however only landed 2 of 6, he landed both of his 2 flags. Funny thing he’s never fished tipups before we met. Now where’s the irony in that eh .

Anyways. The hooks we were running were 1/0 gatsu’s. He was using one single hooking the herring in the dorsal area, I was running one in the eye of the herring the other behind the dorsal. (we are only allowed to fish dead bait).

After 6 flags and only 2 fish I was a little dissapointed in this quickstrike setup however I am thinking it’s due to my hook selection? That or placement on the herring? One of the pike to raise the flag was fairly large, I was thinking well over 10lbs, not huge but better then the hammer handles we’ve been experiencing the past few outings. Any help here would be appreciated.

The other half to this post is also Pike fishing. We are both running one tip up and one rod. The rods we are tipping with hole herring or pieces and either a bare hook (my partner) and I am running some airplane jigs. Today was the first day I had a fish near my line, he followed it to the hole. My partner has landed a couple with just a barehook and herring however it’s 2 fish to almost 20 flags on the tips, pretty meger really. It seems they are wanting the bait just hung there dead like. I was thinking of running a large slip bobber and hardly touching the rod. Any other idears to get these finicky pike to take on the rod and reel. I love tip up fishing, only second to hearing the screaming of a drag on a good long run.

Thanks for the help.

Dan

Dan, I’ll point a couple people to your post…as the only tipping I do is cow tipping.

Please click on the flashing envelope icon towards the top middle of your screen…that icon lets you know you have a private message.

Good luck in the quest for your answers. I’ll be watching closely since I’ll be pike fishing with tip ups this weekend for the first time!

20 lb. fluorocarbon, #6 or #4 hook, in 3 three years of using this i haven’t broke off a fish. This rig has put several 38″-40″ fish on the ice including my personal best of 42.25. You have to be a bit careful when setting the hook but its a good set up

Hey Dan;

Maybe I can help out a little.

For your hook selection, I prefer to use a smaller treble on quick strike rigs. I can’t think of the size, but they are basically no bigger than a “nickel” around………About the size of a #14 Rapala Husky Jerk treble.

Sounds like you have them set right, with one hook attached to the end of the leader and the other “free-sliding”. The “attached hook should be hooked into the snout of the bait, not the eye…..That may help……
The free-slider should be attached to the dorsal fin area. This will help the bait not “point downwards” and give a more natural horizontal presentation…….

Try that……..

Now, with the hook setting of a quick strike rig……..There is no wait…….It is INSTANT!!!!! As soon as you get to the flag, set the hook!!!!!! Even if the fish is swimming at Mach 3 speeds, grab the line and hang on!!!!!

Another factor in hook setting tip ups is that it only requires a gentle pull. You don’t need to pretend you are in a “tug of war”!!!!!!! If you jerk it hard, you will only rip the bait/hooks out of the mouth. Like I said, if they are flying at mach 3, just grab the line tight and start pulling in!!!!!! If they are sitting there, eating, just pull up fast, not jerk!!!!

But to be honest with you, I don’t use quick strike rigs. I personally think that at times, all that jazz on the bait will turn off a fish. I prefer just a plain 1/0 hook, right through the dorsal fin.

I know some may say that will cause the fish to eat the hook and gut hook them……..But I never have a gut hooked fish………

With the single hook, I let the fish take the initial run with the bait. After a short run, they will stop and re-position the bait in their mouth to take it head first. Once they do that, they will start running again…….THAT is when I set the hook, just as they start swimming again, not letting them go 3 feet.

90% of my hooks are in the corner of the mouth, because the fish are swimming away from me. 10% are hooked in the mouth, but none are in the gut!!!!!!

As for jigging pike……I love it, but only do it on camera. I use nothing fancy other than a gold or silver jig, hooking a live sucker through the snout. One trick that seems to work is to cut off the fins. This will make the sucker swim like mad, but he can’t go anywhere, because they have no fins!!!!!! So, they sit and “shake”!!!!!! Just a simple little scissors to trim off the fins work fine.

If the fish don’t want a jigged bait, then just stick with the tip-ups. It is the location of the bait to the water you are fishing that will determine your strikes. Most people set their dead bait about 20% below the ice in the water column. Meaning that in 10 feet of water, with 3 feet of weeds growing from the bottom, they set the bait about 1 to 2 feet below the ice.

Live bait, I’m running about 1 to 2 feet above the weeds…….Again, pending on how deep of water I’m fishing……

Hope this helps?!?!?!?!

This is great info… I also use small trebles but always with live bait. Have never used dead bait, yet. Gary, do you always trim the fins or just in certain situations?

Trimming the fins is something I do not do religiously, don’t know if I should or not…….

But if the pike are a little “off”, I normally trim. When I say off, that is when I’m jigging them with a camera. They will roll up and just sniff……..Then swim away…..

Camera fishing while jigging pike with suckers is a HOOT if you never done it before. You can literally spot your fish up to 10 or 20 feet away. If the fish are hot, you will watch them blaze in from 10 feet away, slam your jig, turn and run………..all on camera!!!!!!

At other times though, they will slither in and just do the stare down, which is when the trimmed fins help. The majority of the time, when a sucker sees a pike, they will either freeze, or make a mad attempt to get away. It is the mode of “freezing” that the trimmed fins DON’T help, because you just have a bait that went “dead” on a hot fish. When you are “dead sticking” the bait, with fins, those fins give off flash. Without fins, there is nothing but a chunk of meat. So, very, very SUBTLE jigging will get you the strike. VERY SUBTLE……..Anthing too harsh or too fast and that snot rocket is in the next bay, scared senseless!!!!!!

But, give that trimmed finned sucker the “shakes” as it trys to escape the pike and it is FISH ON!!!!!!!!

I’ll never forget a hot pike afternoon, where we were jigging with a camera. I had two little snot rockets working feverishly to grab my sucker. Since they were on the smaller side, I kept pulling the sucker away everytime they tried to hit it. I truely had two little angry hammer handles going nuts to catch the sucker. It was a blast.
Then, off in the distance, I could see something in the weeds that didn’t look right………As my buddy and I stared into the camera to figure out what the heck it was, BAM!!!!!!!!! This torpedo came out of the weeds at light speed and slammed my sucker so fast, we both jumped back from the camera, because she came flying by!!!!!! When we regained composure from the impact, I had a beauty 6lber from Lake Marion at the end of my line!!!!! She just couldn’t contain herself any longer, with those two little pike trying to eat my bait, so she took over!!!!!!!!

Gary,

Thanks a ton, that’s exactly what I am looking for.

I picked up some 30lb florucarbon as the 40 is just a bit to big imho.

The single 1/0 gami’s were with the sliding hook in the dorsal and the tied hook in the eye was keeping the bait horizontal however I wasn’t sticking as many as I thought I should. I did double my partners flags using the florucarbon.

When you’re running the two trebels, are you running them off the back, one hook down two up?

Sure wish we could fish live bait, however that’s unlikely to ever happen. Just finding dead bait is a task. Herring is easy to pick up as the amount of salt anglers here is quiet high and some use it for burbot. Wish I could find some smelt as we keep hearing about how stinky they are. The local shops don’t carry any smelt scent or I am sure we could douse a herring with smelt smell and achieve the same thing.

I just picked up the lx-5 today so buying a camera, as sweet as it sounds, is highly unlikely. It’d be neat to be able to run one of those camera’s back to a jet diver while back bouncing for kings in june. Imagine, 50lbs of jaws inhaling a bait the size of a soft ball on video. Well I am off to play with the lx-5 and hopefully find a gator essox