Tip Up advice

I apologize in advance as I’m sure this topic has been discussed quite a few times. I looked back a few pages but couldn’t find anything.

This weekend I will have my potable set up on a decent break line. I plan on putting some tip ups out in some shallow and deeper water just to see what happens. I will be out from about noon until after dark. Action could be some northern and perch with a good chance of a quick walleye bite at dusk.

I haven’t purchased a tip up in nearly twenty years.

Recommendations on brand or style?

Are the circular polar tip ups worth it?

I always used the thicker black fishing line on my tip ups. Advice on best line for all around durability catching different species?

Fish on!

I got just about all of em and I like em all. For real cold weather, I do like the orange disc insulated frabills. I also have the iFishPros for warmer weather that lets you use your rod and reel. Pretty nice units once you get the hand of em.

Thanks.

I was thinking about going with the orange disc. Do they work that well in frigid weather? Any issues using them with the tropical weather we will be experiencing this weekend?

They work a LOT better than anything else for real cold weather except for a few box designs that have a burning coal briquette can design built in. No problems in warmer weather for sure.

We all know that Beaver Dam is probably the best tip up out there but man have they got expensive..Have to agree with JD those round insulated ones work great in cold weather. Keeps the hole from freezing up. And my son has had some good luck with that little round one lately…has caught 4 Walleyes on it just last weekend alone..21-26 inchers… Good luck with whatever you go with.

Deffinetly use braided line like you mentioned. I have the older Black round insulated ones and the regular plastic HT ones.

The round ones do take longer to freeze but once they do, you cannot chip them free as easy as the regular ones. Myself I like the regular ones and then make your own insulated piece out of foam board with a slit cut in it.

Beaver Dams get my vote. They are expensive (about 40.00 each), but they will last for years. I made some covers and they don’t freeze much even in the coldest weather. Very, very smooth. Use braided line with a mono leader.

I love my beaver dams. Best tip ups on the market. My buddys dad has beaver dams that are as old as me and he still uses them. Beaver dam also makes round insulated tip ups too. A little pricy but well worth the cash.

If you are going the route of BD, you’re better off searching CL or Ebay for the older models. I just picked up 2 off of CL a few weeks ago.

I’ve been also using the Frabill Pro Thermals, since they came out. I like them, with the exception of the short flags. However, again, the first generation of the Pro Thermals were much better tip ups. Especially, when using larger suckers, as they had a bait clip.

You get what you pay for. I love my Beaver Dam tip ups. Just this summer I was digging through our shed at the cabin and I found 3 Beaver Dam tip ups. I asked my grandpa if I could have them because he goes south for the winter now. He said they had not been used since the winter of 1962 so they might not work… All I had to do was put on new line and they work great. Might as well buy good ones because even if you don’t use them they will last forever.
Caught this last weekend on a Beaver Dam:

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Man, you Beaver Dam guys are always so hardcore. I would trade you for a $20 Polar. A lubed tube is a lubed tube in my book. They all need to be taken care of and re-lubed on occasion. I have a couple BD’s and never use them.

Still using BDs I bought in 1976 and I know that for sure because I replaced the flags with the American flags I got for the bicentennial. Never re-lubed or serviced in any way. Just stored flat during the off-season.

I’ve gone through 3 sets of orange round Frabill’s. I usually only fish tipups when it’s too cold for anything else and once they freeze up you might as well throw it away because they freeze a lot faster each time after that. They also don’t spin as freely as a BD so light biters will sense the tension.

There’s lots of cheap foam hole covers for the BD on days you need a hole cover. It does help to buy the little handle thingy for winding up line though. They are a b*^&# to reel in line after a long runner on a bitter cold day. My hands are turning blue thinking about it.

I pretty much gave up tipups though. If it’s that cold don’t go otherwise use a rod and reel in a wire rod holder with a foam bobber. If you clear the snow away from around the hole you can still see the bobber from 20-30 yds away. Setting the drag real loose will also let the fish spool line freely while striping line off without coils. The big advantages of that is you can also see the rod tip bend a bit from a distance but just you and you don’t have every fool on the lake yelling FLAG!!! It also allows for much lighter lines – I use 6-8# even for large pike and you get the joy of fighting a fish on a rod & reel which is tons more exciting the hand lining in fish on a line resembling cabling. When it’s time to move or pack up for the day it’s also lots faster putting a jig pole away than winding a tipup and securing it so you don’t get a mess when it’s time to put it all away.

The best tipup is no tipup.

Beavers are the best rail style tipups, as for thermals, you can get 2 frabills for the price of one round beaver.

Personally, I use all rail tipups with hole covers and they works wonders. Got a pack of black interlocking foam floor tiles, and cut em up into 12″ circles and BAM! 24 hole covers for 30$…beats 8$/piece at Fleet. Haven’t had a hole freeze up yet. The black absorbs sunlight, so they’ll keep the hole warm(ish) even through the dark hours. Like I said, haven’t had a frozen hole with them yet.

One item that hasn’t been mentioned, but I suspect it’s not too much of an issue where you live, and that is snow depth. In the land of the never ending lake effect and wind where I live, low profiled disks and BDs become snow covered very quickly. As such, I’ve gone with a set of Jack Traps which are considerably higher profiled. FWIW, the extra height helps with the good snowmobilers as they can better see and avoid them, whereas it could better act as a target for the bad ones…thankfully, I haven’t had anybody target my Jacks yet…KOW.

mitchfic wrote:

You get what you pay for. I love my Beaver Dam tip ups. Just this summer I was digging through our shed at the cabin and I found 3 Beaver Dam tip ups. I asked my grandpa if I could have them because he goes south for the winter now. He said they had not been used since the winter of 1962 so they might not work… All I had to do was put on new line and they work great. Might as well buy good ones because even if you don’t use them they will last forever.
Caught this last weekend on a Beaver Dam:

Agreed! btw, nice brownie! Where’d you catch that one?

If you use 6-8# line for pike you must buy hooks by the gross and line by the mile. Just kidding, but it sounds awful lite to me, especially through the ice.

If I’m targeting pike I use a heavy fluorocarbon muskie leader (think I paid close to $5 each for them), set the drag as light as possible, and let the rod fight the fish. The leader is fairly long so once that’s in the hole I can grab the end of it and not put much strain on the line. Biggest so far is 38″. Haven’t had one break off yet but I’m sure it’ll happen sooner or later. Granted I only target pike a few times a year but I’ve been using it for 5-6 years now.

For added visibility of “flags” from a distance I sometimes go without a float and slide the bobber stop up to the tip of the rod. It’s amazing how far you can see that little string. In the past I used a little scotch tape and attached a piece of yarn, string or ribbon which will fall off as you’re reeling in fish or you can rip it off easily if it gets slightly stuck in the rod tip. Usually I’ll just see the rod tip bouncing slightly as the fish is peeling out line on the lightest set drag possible.

That makes more sense. I was picturing 6-8# line on the business end. It does beg the question though, if you’re using a leader why not go to a nice limp braid on the reel?

Past years I’ve just used my open water walleye reels with 6 or 8# Fireline which worked great cutting through weeds under the ice and the no stretch was nice for pulling pike off weeds if they hung up a little. I think I have 6 or 8# Ice Magic on the reels this year and still haven’t had any problems though I’m not as confident in the setup as I was with the Fireline. Main reason for not using a nice limp braid is I don’t carry a lot of rods and use a small snap to attach leaders so I can quickly switch to a jigging rap or spoon and I don’t like braid for that especially jigging shallow clear water.

I haven’t read all the responses to see where this has gone but:
Beaver Dams are very nice tip-ups, the the plastic framed HT Polar Tip ups (not the round thermal ones) work very well, are easy to service, and are priced reasonably.

I got some very cheap carpet samples, and cut a slit in them for the shaft to fit through. They will keep the holes very ice free. Only time I’ve had any significant ice build up was overnight on those well below 0 nights. For normal use, and checking the holes every now and then, the carpet samples keep the holes open.

Never used the round ones so I can’t comment on those.

What kind of main line does everybody use?

I don’t have Beaver Dams, but I wish I did. My HTs with the plastic flags are breaking one at a time after only a few hears. However, the Frabill rail styles that I have are holding up pretty well. I might try to buy some used Beaver Dams in the near future for some more durable use.

I mostly use Beaver Dam tip ups. I had some scrap carpet, cut a slit with a small hole in the middle and that seems to work pretty well. In college, we had very small boat harbor off the main channel of the Mississippi that was just loaded with northern. We used to place tip ups in the open slips or where ever there was some empty water. We’d sit on the docks with a couple adult beverages and wait for flags in the open water season. It was a hoot.

Well I guess I should have read allll the comments before posting my idea…Sorry Curleytail!!! But it makes a nice cheap hole insulator. Has anyone out there tried that alarm blutooth system for tip ups? I always see ads for them on Craigslist and what not. It would be pretty cool to just get a text or how ever it works when you have a fish on. Ahhh technology.

I have the blue tips alarms you mentioned and I really like them. Pricey they but have not let me down. It sends a signal to my smart phone and the phone plays a ring tone. I use the fishy fishy jingle from McDonald’s. I even modified one of my tip downs to have it on and it works great. I have BD frabil and HT rail style tip ups and all work pretty well except I think the BD’s are a little harder to turn in colder weather. I just have them set for northern and use the others for eyes.

I have beaver dams, but I also use Indian hill traps. Snow mobiles see them better and the trigger is lighter. Still have the Beavers, they still get some use, but the indian hills are getting more miles. Quality and 100% us made too.

I use the basic black ht polars, bout ten bucks a pop and ive had mine several years with no issues. I use 20 darcon for a main line with 3foot of eight pound sufix elite for a leader attached with a small ball bearing swivel. on the business end is a single aberdeen hook. The pics attached are from last weekend. only one break off in 2 days of fishing and we were getting far more flags than others around us. As for the holes freezing up i usually just tend the set every half hour. walk around, give them a lift and drop and clear any ice. On the coldest days i will use a foam hole cover.

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