What tip-up rigging works the best

I know there are a lot of very good tip-up fisherman here , but several things I see when fishing tip-up areas both with guide customers using their own tip ups by choice and by watching others fish tip-up is that at least in Mississippi backwater locations all tip-up rigging is not created equal. I know I will step on some toes here and my purpose is not necessarily to change what tip-up guys and gals are doing now , but to make them try new or little tweaks to make their time on the ice more productive.

Staring with my very first pet peave, especially in small shallow bays,(2-5 foot deep and about half the size of a football field or smaller)…. Leave the power auger at home. Every single time this year and in the past that we have used a power auger fishing has been very slow and finicky or took a long time afterword to get going. The most telling is when in the middle of a great bite I or someone else has used the power auger even for just 2 or three holes and the bite shut off completely or we went instantly to grab and drops. I mean almost everytime. I have a very bad neck and upper back so I would perfer a power auger, but I also need ,especially when guiding, to maximize the catch so I am very aware of things that hurt our bite. One option when your time permits ofcource is to cut and cover the holes the night before, and just spud or hand auger the little ice that forms overnight. In Larger deeper water areas the effect seems to decrease , and for panfish it doesn’t seem to make a bit of a difference whether you use a hand or power auger. In fact I seem to notice although I’m not positive that panfish seem to actually be drawn in by activity and sound. I realize predator fish especially Northern and Musky are also drawn in by some amount of sound in open water but it seems to have exactly the opposite effect in hard water situations.

Second I think it is pretty commonly accepted that the lighter or less resistance a fish feels when it picks up a bait in open water fishing the more apt to hold on and be tricked into being hooked. A possible exception to that is southern spotted bass that actually seem to hold on better or bite farther up the bait when they feel a little tension. So why when it isn’t absolutely necessary,( which is almost everywhere I fish for Northern and Bass on tip-ups) do some folks put heavy sinkers( I’m talking up to 1/2 – 1oz), and floats on all their tip-ups and wonder why they catch less than those that don’t. You already have the tension of the spool without that added resistance that is added by these items.

Plus consistently through out the hard water season in areas up to about 6 feet deep and often in water much deaper I a catch a huge percentage of my Northern Pike and Bass on my baits that are just barely below the bottom surface of the ice. I test other depths every day , but seem to keep coming back to the same conclusions. Even more importantly with the extra weight you need to set your tip-up tention tighter, again giving the fish even more reason to grab and drop.

So I prefer to not even use a leader, and instead I use the same Stren 45-65 lb braid that I use for fishing slop Bass in the soft water season. I haven’t had a bite off in as long as I can remember. I still have several tip-ups that I have short thin wire leaders on but they are actually specifically for guide customers that all but refuse to fish tip-ups without a leader and have consistently through the time I’ve spent tip-up fishing caught a much lower percentage of fish than the ones without leaders.

I’m not saying that on days when the fish are feeding very heavily and like a pack of wolves that the things I mentioned above that hurt the bite will make you get skunked, but even then I am as postitive as I can get that it will hurt your catching ratio. I am also confident that truly trophy fish will be even more affected by the little things. what’s that often heard comment, “they didn’t get that big by accident”

I hope this helps improve folks tip-up fishing for northern and bass. I welcome any comments about what others found the same or even completely different or contradictory to my suggestions… thats how we All learn.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hook-Ups and may Santa and his elves bring you a huge gift certificate to your favorite sporting good store.

Interesting points. I like the idea of being quiet. I don’t care what it is you are hunting or fishing, being quiet is always beneficial. Some will hoot and holler and have a blast. I’m up for a good time, but then they need to realize that their actions are having direct consequences on their success. Especially when hunting, I’m amazed by how loud people are. I’ve noticed this especially in the duck blind. People say it doesn’t matter, but I believe it does. Noise scares off all critters and I believe the the quarry of choice notices these subtle changes. If for any other reason, I like to keep quiet just to be quiet and notice nature. I’ve had squirrels climb my gun barrel while turkey hunting, chickadees eat trail mix out of my hand while on deer stand, fox and raccoon catch fish while twitching a worm for bass, I’ve even had grouse roost in my tree. I don’t say this to sound boastful, but sometimes it is more rewarding to blend into nature and become a part of it than to actually harvest the animal.

I have the same pet peeve’s…. easily solved, go to another spot/lake, we got 10,000 of them

big G

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Staring with my very first pet peave, especially in small shallow bays,(2-5 foot deep and about half the size of a football field or smaller)…. Leave the power auger at home. Every single time this year and in the past that we have used a power auger fishing has been very slow and finicky or took a long time afterword to get going. The most telling is when in the middle of a great bite I or someone else has used the power auger even for just 2 or three holes and the bite shut off completely or we went instantly to grab and drops. I mean almost everytime. I have a very bad neck and upper back so I would perfer a power auger, but I also need ,especially when guiding, to maximize the catch so I am very aware of things that hurt our bite.

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I have been told that power augers actually make less noise under water because they can cut through quicker, the noise from the engine underwater is actually minimal. If its true or not i don’t know. Your experiences could just be coincidence.

Have to agree with fearnofish here…..
I pretty much have to use a power auger.
In shallow water it can slow things down sometimes….
But then again I have caught fish out of a freshly drilled hole……Go figure

Thanks for your feedback on the auger part.
Any feedback on the actual rigging of the tip-up ????

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Thanks for your feedback on the auger part.
Any feedback on the actual rigging of the tip-up ????

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Sure bud…
I guess I’m on the “old guy” types when it comes to tip-up fishing for Pike..I like steel leaders…I do like the shorter ones so they do not get bent over in storage…straighter the better for me.
But thinking back, I have caught many a Pike while Bass fishing using 15lb XT for a leader and had few bite offs..
I’m gonna try your tip of using a heavier braid instead….What brand do you prefer?
I also use the smallest,lightest terminal tackle possible…just enough to keep the bait down.

Merry Christmas to you and yours also guy

I haven’t tip up fished in a few years, but plan to do some this year. The braid I have is the dark green color. Will this work? I may have missed it in your post, do you still keep the bait up shallow when fishing in 15-20 fow? What is your favorite bait to use?.

I am using 25lb flourocarbon leaders tied Uni to uni to my tip up line. So far I like it alot.

Stren Superbraid 65 lb when I can get it locally in the winter or 45 when I can’t. Often times I just take the used line off my slop reels from the end of the open water season. I also have used 20XT with a shortleader and the bite offs came often enough that I guess the fish were biting up the line or tearing at the line out of anger???

But again less than one month ago I watched 4 young men have 6 bite offs in 3 hours with mono. If you ever have caught fish that have bit of and had to live with the tackle in their mouth you know why I hate bite offs. About a week ago we again caught one that appeared to be last years tackle running out one side gill. It looked like a Mille Lac walleye back a couple of years ago when the forage was so low they were almost starving. But it was still alive??

I rarely set the bait more than 8-12 inches below the bottom of the ice in any depth and catch fish. As I may have mentioed before I always have several in our spread, (there is usually 3-5 of us fishing), at other depths to keep testing , but rearely ever catch one on those deeper sets…in a similar post in this forum guys mention they do so other depths do work, but to be complete in my answer it is a very rare ocassion when my tip ups are set over water deeper than 5 feet. One exception is in the bay inside the dam wall at Dresbach , which is deeper in some spots, but I still only go down about 12 inches below the ice. Also the Stren braind is quite dark.

My favorite bait is still the biggest shiners I can buy at a bait shop. Although all the shiners seem to work.. seems to get more bass on the smaller shiners. We ocassionally catch a fish on a dead shiner and just before ice out I have caught fish on dead frozen shiners.

Thanks Lawrence and Kev. I have some line that will work.I’ll pick up shiners when we go. I’ll report if we have some success. Been a few years with little fishing for me, got to search out some backwaters to try it out on.

I usually put at least one right under the ice and some a few feet off the bottom. If there are weeds you want your bait just over them but not able to get into them. Trophy pike here on Mendota are taken everywhere, but those guys that are consistent fish 20-30 feet of water 5 feet off the bottom. When we are chasing eyes at night we rarely fish deeper than 6-7 feet of water and fish directly in weeds the greener the better. I love tipup fishing.

Lawrence:

Here is a couple of ways that I set mine up:

First, when I am walleye fishing or maybe even hoping for a few perch in an area w/out pike, I will set up with 4′-6′ 6# mono or 8# magnmathin. Then I tie on a #12 treble hook and add enough split shot (or large enough split shot) to hold the shiner somewhat in place when I set it. If I am in an area with pike then I use 30# mangnathin. Why??? because I didn’t use it all when spooling for muskie years ago and it makes a great leader in dark water for ‘eyes & resists bite offs with the pike. The two pics are from the same night same setup, one a small muskie & one nice ‘eye.

As for the power auger… IMHO drill away, we work quiet ice, but that means little foot movement and you better be able to walk without creepers. We are usually ice fishing in 3′ of water for our first ice ‘eyes. Once we get setup, we get off the ice or stand very still. If we take the dogs with, all exercising takes place right away or off the ice. This early shallow bite only lasts until right around Jan. 1 for us, so these are very important items for us.

Mark

Regarding the noise on the ice…do you guys see an effect when snowmobiles and/or 4-wheelers are around you? I know on some busier lakes, that can be a factor. There’s also times when it’s fun to take the sled or wheeler across the ice to buy bait (instead of driving on the roads), and I just want to see if there’s any opinions out there.