LOTW Pike

Heading to LOTW mid-March and it sounds like this can be a good time to set a few tip ups for pike. Just looking for a few tips. Setting the bait on the bottom, couple feet off the bottom or just under the ice etc? Staying in sleeper, which I assume will be in shallower water(16-18 ft) by then so is this where want the tip ups out? Plan to take the portable deeper during the day unless the fish bite fairly steady, in which case we will fish the sleeper. Any info/tips that have worked appreciated.

Most all my winter Pike Fishing on LOTW has been in the shallower bays ( 8 Ft or Less ) Dead Smelt has been the best bait by far. Be careful where you get them. There are restrictions on where they need to be harvested from and documentation is needed to prove it. We learned that one the hard way one. No tickets – but all of our bait was taken away from us. Don’t laugh but plain old CHEAP hotdogs work really well as well. I thought someone was pulling a prank on me until I saw our first 3 fish come off tipups baited with hotdogs. Good luck – hope you catch a few BIG ones !!!!

Find some monster sucker minnows. 8ft maybe 10 ft of water. Dead sucker minnows

I typically run bait halfway in the water column from 5 to 10 feet and 3 to 5 feet off bottom when fishing 10 feet plus and I feel you shouldn’t have to go over 18 feet