LOW Pike Trip

Heading up the End of March to do a Pike fishing trip. With the season closing for most of the state where do people have luck finding suckers that time of the year?
Thanks for the help.

If you’re driving through Brainerd S&W Bait will have what you need.

orve4 wrote:

Heading up the End of March to do a Pike fishing trip. With the season closing for most of the state where do people have luck finding suckers that time of the year?
Thanks for the help.

It can certainly be tough, lots of places are already out for the season (not sure about up there, but around Duluth anyway). When we were up in March a couple years ago the only suckers available were decoy suckers (they caught a few fish but were huge and $$$).

The bait shop also had a limit as too how many we could buy, it was only a dozen or half dozen (can’t remember for sure), and that was for four people . It was Long Cabin or Border Bait (again can’t remember which one, but one was totally out, the other had the decoy suckers).

I’d plan ahead and start calling around, if you find some set up a cooler with an aerator and Better-Bait. Freeze and salt any that die before your trip.

The other option is to use dead bait (smelt, ciscoes). Most places by LOTW carry it, but again it’s a matter of if they will have some left by the time you get there.

We picked up some good sized dyed smelt yesterday at Outdoor Advantage in Cloquet, didn’t end up needing them (still had 8 suckers at home) but from past experience I know they work. Not as good as live bait, but better than not fishing.

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We always bring frozen Smelt along also that we get at stoplight bait here in St Cloud. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Heading up Thursday morning for our annual Big Pike trip out of Zipple and my buddy that lives there got me on board with pretty much using decoys. Those big pike don’t care. They love them! A little spendy, but worth it IMHO.

If using Frozen smelt. Make sure they have the proper VHSV free stickers on the bait. Not just any smelt can be used. They are way picky on this up there and check it rather close. Almost learned this the hard way, Purchased smelt at Morey’s and was told it was legal for use on lake of the woods. Turned out according to a game officer it was not.

In a pinch even hot dogs will work. We had a trip where the hotdogs caught as many or more fish than the live bait did. I’d be sure to bring some for sure. The cheapest ones work the best

Have done the dogs on Devils…

Told my brother to drop me off at the grocery store to get them. He just about sh!t when I came out with the “yard-o-beef” Told him I ain’t after hammer handles!

Went good with the chunk of cheese also in the bag – along with the corn kings…

IceNEyes1986 wrote:

Heading up Thursday morning for our annual Big <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>Pike trip out of Zipple and my buddy that lives there got me on board with pretty much using decoys. Those big <em class=”ido-tag-em”>pike don’t care. They love them! A little spendy, but worth it IMHO.

Wait a minute, who told you about using decoys? I remember trying to buy them years ago up there and the guy at the bait shop told me that they’re too big for tip ups.. haha. We caught some bigs that weekend.