count me in… ive got alot of gear and maybe a surplus of some bait, i prefer dead sometimes anyways but they are scented and frozen and seem to work well… ive taken 30 pike w/ a decent fish this year so im not afraid to put it down. all of my gear consists of around 10 to 12 tip ups with 4 jaw jackers; fully rigged with 65 pd. leaders and 50 pd braid so bring on some monsters! i also have 2 nice portable depth finders and the one that goes along with me…lol has a built in sonar option. i have a gas powered auger 8' hole which is totally fine for most any pike i would argue. mathematically speaking… an 8 inch hole should be able to handle a fish with a 24 inch girth….. i pulled a fat 36 inch easily through an 8 inch hole unless we are going to murray to tip up fish for some skis…….. than im fine with an 8 inch hole! by the way too… im fine with going to murray somebody stop me im geared up for 40+ inch fish…in my mind.. i drill 6 to 8 holes… take a saw to the edges and put down my rods with a 10+ inch decoy on a rod and real heavy enough for monsters and get ready…Will Shultz… tell me i cant or i think im gonna ive been flirting with it all ice year but im scared that the only reason you dont try is because you dont want to hurt them… i feel like i can do it without hurting them, ive seen videos and i feel like if i hook them on a strong enough rod and reel. and i cut a big enough hole and the fish never touches the ice i wont hurt it. ive seen it done for big pike on LOFTW that i feel like i can target them. i love big fish. i hate waiting to fish for them!
Muskies through the ice is totally fine. The only thing I would be careful with is pulling them out of the "warm" water into single digit temps and laying them in the snow for long periods of time. Their skin will freeze just as fast as ours in the freezing cold. Just think about how cold your hands are when they're wet, and it 5 degrees outside.
I will add that it is hard enough to find the critters in open water where you can cast, search, see everything, and move with little limitations. Make the water hard, and you are limiting yourself to an 8-ish inch hole, that takes a few minutes to drill and set up, and a certain amount of time to figure out whats going on around it. If they keyed on gills and crappies, it would help, but they don't, nor are they overly active in the winter to begin with… What I am getting at is that its not that its impossible to catch a muskie thru the ice, nor is it necessarily bad for the fish, Its that it would be practically insane to actually target them exclusively. I have no objection to being prepared and throwing a tip-up on a lake like murray, or having a jigging rod with a big spoon handy in case I see something on my graph, but to limit yourself to only trying to catch a musky out there is as close as it gets to being a waste of time and money.
Totally get the idea of being impossible.. Just hate accepting it lol. I just feel that when I fish for a 45 inch northern through the ice on local waters that my odds for that are worse than targeting muskies with big decoys. It would be sweet to target both at the same time. I really want to hit a fish over 40 through the ice it's been eating at me for 4 years 🙂
"bails" said:
Will Shultz… tell me i cant or i think im gonna ive been flirting with it all ice year but im scared that the only reason you dont try is because you dont want to hurt them… i feel like i can do it without hurting them, ive seen videos and i feel like if i hook them on a strong enough rod and reel. and i cut a big enough hole and the fish never touches the ice i wont hurt it. ive seen it done for big pike on LOFTW that i feel like i can target them. i love big fish. i hate waiting to fish for them!
First off, I'm not a fan of ice fishing for anything and would rather not fish than ice fish. I've done it enough, even targeted muskies a couple times, but it's not fun. Muskie fishing is about the hunt, seeing the strike, feeling the strike, the hook set, the water flying fight and ice fishing offers none of this. That said… Cold, especially extreme cold, can freeze eyes and gills quickly.
Ice fishing on Big Blue lake is a blast because you don't normally have time to sit down and a flag is up. There are so many pike it is ridiculous out there. When fishing for food it is one of the best times as the fish flesh is firm. We take our Blue gills in early season March and April and most of our Pike either late fall or winter time. But like Will says it can be so cold that it stops being fun. We have a couple nice little Ice huts "tents" and heaters but you really do have to locate fish to be productive. I have fished this lake so many times that I have the top producing spots zeroed and marked out. I can walk right to the spots turn on my gps , drill a hole and catch a fish. The weather for this outing has a good chance of being in the 30's with lots of safe ice. Our last trip we had 20 flags in about 4 hours kept 9 fish out of 16 that hit the ice. We put one back that was about 25 inches and a bunch of really little ones. The eaters average about 20 inches. The chance of a 30 to 35 inch fish is slim but there are a few. Mike
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