Question about Windlass Tip ups

Ive been running these types of tip ups for the last three years and really like the extra action they give the bait. I have found that even with hole covers, they are only good about 15-20 degrees otherwise i find myself having to de-ice the hole more then i would like.

My question is two fold.
1. What do you guys use for line on it?
2. How do you have your quickstrike rig set up for pike using dead bait?

-I have used both vinyl coated line and dacron braid and found both to work well. The vinyl coated is a little bit better with ice build up then the dacron though. I use a 4-6′ leader of Berkley Vanish 10 pound and it seems to work great. Ive caught everything from pike to perch on it and havent had any break offs.

This year i would like to devote one tip up to a large dead creek chub on a windlass tip up for pike/large walleye fishing but i have some questions. The creek chub is going to weigh a lot more then the minnows im using so is it necessary to use both springs in order to keep the bait off the bottom? Also, i have never used a quick strike rig before but bought a couple of prepackaged ones. I imagine you just attach the rig to your line; plain and simple? Is a steel/titanium leader necessary?

These a very good questions. I use the dacron braid as well with an 8-10 foot snell of 8 pound monofilament for walleye. Works very well. I’m not exerienced with using quick strike rigs on tip-ups. What lakes are you fishing??

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that you should always use a leader if your fishing for northerns.

Im fishing various lakes in north central and central iowa. I figure i will rig up one of my pike tip ups with a leader. Suprisingly the 10 pound Vanish has held up really well thus far. The largest fish i caught on it was a 32.5″ pike and it put a real hurt on the set up but it still worked flawlessly.

Yeah, I caught a 39 inch northern last winter on Upper Red Lake while crappie fishing with 4 pound test. That was nuts. There was over 42 inches of ice and I could not get the head started up the bottom of the hole, it took like 15 minutes to get it up the hole. I got lucky because I hooked the fish in the corner of the mouth where its teeth couldn’t cut the line.