This was brought up by someone else in a different thread so I thought I would make a new one over here. I love watching tipups, so i have been expirementing lately tand trying to increase my number of flags. I also like fishing slammers for steelies….So here is my next feeble attempt at getting a leg up on maybe catching a big one through the ice. I also wanted to try to increase hookups, and decrease gut hooked pike (never hooked a mucky on a tipup, but I wouldn't want to gut hook one either). I am going to try it for all esocids btw…
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It consists of a smaller slammer set up, a 36" heavy jigging ice rod, and a swedish pimple, not to be confused with the swedish fish in my pocket for a snack. a small aberdeen hook on the pimple in the nose of the bait, and a short wire attached to a treble, inserted in the back/side of the sucker/minnow. when the Hog hits, it gets the hook set on it immediately, i am imagining in the side of the upper jaw every time!
We will see, i'll let you know if it works on tuesday!
All my buddies have custom homemade "slammers" they use for pike. However, they usually use 5.5-6.5ft spinning rods with a real good flex. Its real cool to see them go off, and even more fun to catch the fish on the rod. Problem is, although they keep the fish from swallowing the bait, my buddies get real frustrated because their hookup percentages are actually far worse with the slammers than the tip ups. They also can tend to be balky and diffucult to carry around, especially if you don't use a machine to get around. All that being said they are a ton of fun, and by far the best way to keep fish from harming themselves.
"Smada962" said:
All my buddies have custom homemade "slammers" they use for pike. However, they usually use 5.5-6.5ft spinning rods with a real good flex. Its real cool to see them go off, and even more fun to catch the fish on the rod. Problem is, although they keep the fish from swallowing the bait, my buddies get real frustrated because their hookup percentages are actually far worse with the slammers than the tip ups. They also can tend to be balky and diffucult to carry around, especially if you don't use a machine to get around. All that being said they are a ton of fun, and by far the best way to keep fish from harming themselves.
Have they tried the quick strike hooking method? or how are they hooking them. My concern with hooking the bait in-line, with just one hook in the side was that when they t-bone the bait it pulls everything right thru the nose…so i added the wire, and moved the flash to the front, and hook to the side…don't know if it will work, but its worth a shot.
Anyone else have any favorites???
"vano397" said:
[quote="Smada962"]All my buddies have custom homemade "slammers" they use for pike. However, they usually use 5.5-6.5ft spinning rods with a real good flex. Its real cool to see them go off, and even more fun to catch the fish on the rod. Problem is, although they keep the fish from swallowing the bait, my buddies get real frustrated because their hookup percentages are actually far worse with the slammers than the tip ups. They also can tend to be balky and diffucult to carry around, especially if you don't use a machine to get around. All that being said they are a ton of fun, and by far the best way to keep fish from harming themselves.
Have they tried the quick strike hooking method? or how are they hooking them. My concern with hooking the bait in-line, with just one hook in the side was that when they t-bone the bait it pulls everything right thru the nose…so i added the wire, and moved the flash to the front, and hook to the side…don't know if it will work, but its worth a shot.
Anyone else have any favorites???
I could see this method missing lots of fish especially if you used a sucker over 8". I wouldn't want the hook set right away since they may have the sucker held in a strange position.
As far as esocids under the ice… for a purely vertical presentation I prefer to turn the hooks around on the sucker so the hook points are toward the tail and/or only use a single treble just ahead of the dorsal fin. I also like 1/0 or smaller hooks instead of the 4/0 I use for muskies in the fall. I don't think I can generate the power needed to drive home a big hook without a muskie rod.
Thanks for this interesting thread. I haven't used slammers and since the suckers and shiners I normally get in recent winters are small, I've been using a small treble or even a single circle hook, justy behind the dorsal, hoping it gives them a little leverage to struggle down toward old weeds I'm hopefully over. But just before the dorsal should be just as good, and I set right away, regardless of single or treble, and like to think the single hook does less damage to the fish.
While launching the "Save-a-Ski" program this winter, I intend to use the big sucker decoy minnows I find with a quick strike, trebles pointed back toward the tail, but the opposite of the arrangement one would use in open water in that the top, lead hook would be near the tail, with the bottom hook near the mid section around the dorsal, both fairly small hooks with one of the hooks on each treble bent to help hold the hooks right (I also use some "Partridge" hooks I think they're called, which is a small hook to hold the bait, adjoined to a larger bend hook exposed, sort of a treble with just two hooks but of different sizes). Awkward to explain but I don't know how to draw and post, and this has hooked nice pike well when I used to get big winter suckers. If no luck at least the harpooners won't get to use 'em, and maybe I'll try eating the suckers if I can't keep them alive until open water.
I stick with large shiners/small suckers 5” to 7”, usually hooked ahead of the dorsal with a single #6 treble. I hit the fish immediately when the flag goes up, with this size bait you know that the shiner/sucker is in the fishes mouth. I like to have a tip-up set within 20’ to 40’ of where I’m jigging for panfish. One of the most productive days that I have had for Muskies on tip-ups took place while catching crappies in 35’ fow.
"vano397" said:
[quote="Smada962"]All my buddies have custom homemade "slammers" they use for pike. However, they usually use 5.5-6.5ft spinning rods with a real good flex. Its real cool to see them go off, and even more fun to catch the fish on the rod. Problem is, although they keep the fish from swallowing the bait, my buddies get real frustrated because their hookup percentages are actually far worse with the slammers than the tip ups. They also can tend to be balky and diffucult to carry around, especially if you don't use a machine to get around. All that being said they are a ton of fun, and by far the best way to keep fish from harming themselves.
Have they tried the quick strike hooking method? or how are they hooking them. My concern with hooking the bait in-line, with just one hook in the side was that when they t-bone the bait it pulls everything right thru the nose…so i added the wire, and moved the flash to the front, and hook to the side…don't know if it will work, but its worth a shot.
Anyone else have any favorites???
For the most part they all use 2 hook rigs. Usually #4 or sometimes #6 trebles. The biggest problem is most the fish seem to hit, get hooked, then come off before you can get to the slammer in time. This last weekend one of my buddies went 0 for 5 on his slammer, and 3 of those fish were hooked when the slammer went off, then as he was running over to the slammer the fish just came off before he had a chance to try to fight it. Not trying to discourage you, this is just what our observations have been. It might also be because most of our SW MI pike lakes are full of nothing but 14-24in. hammer handles and maybe they just dont grab the bait solidly enough to get hooked well.
"vano397" said:
Liking the hooking in the tail routine, i can imagine this makes the struggle a little sto stay upright too, which would add a little extra flash.
I have spent extensive time the last three winters experimenting with different ways of hooking shiners and watching them while jigging for pike on an underwater camera. If hooked in the tail they often get tired then just lay there hanging vertically head down. This isn't always bad though as sometimes it doesn't matter how they hang. BY FAR our most productive trick for pike is what I call the double minnow. Hook 2 pike shiners on 1 #6 treble, both through the back, facing opposite directions. Drives pike nuts. The two live shiners fight each other back and forth, and give off tremendous flash. It works equally as well with 1 dead shiner, and 1 live. The live one will pull the rotting nasty smelling dead one all over leaving scent and flash. It has gotten to where we catch 80-90% of our pike on double minnow set-ups of some kind. The best part also is I have yet to see anyone else in my area trying this technique, so it also stands out compared to every other hillbilly's set up. I probably shouldn't be giving up my "secret", but since this is in the "member discussion" I guess everyone can't read it.
I keep it pretty simple with a #6 gamakatsu on 27# flouro. I rig the treble embedded next to the dorsal and aiming rearward, premise being that most predatory fish will move the head of the bait into their mouth, then the hook will be aiming in the correct position to hook as it is pulled out. We generally use suckers in a variety of sizes…down here, I have done better on 6" bait while up at LBDN we fish 8-10' suckers with walleyes as the target and large pike as bonus fish. The one hook almost always works and we have not had a problem with bite-offs.
Great stuff! Smada, I hadn't heard of the two reversed shiners before and that sounds awesome, I'll be trying that despite the extra bait used (it's funny that I usually end up going with 1-2 local non-MMA guys that never end up buying the minnows, or driving, or contributing anything really, but I get more lines out that way and they are otherwise good company).
"Smada962" said:
BY FAR our most productive trick for pike is what I call the double minnow. Hook 2 pike shiners on 1 #6 treble, both through the back, facing opposite directions. Drives pike nuts. The two live shiners fight each other back and forth, and give off tremendous flash.
I Like this too, I think it might be similiar to what I have been experiencing with the swedish pimple, a little weight pulling them around, and some extra flash. They really like to fight against it. I hook the minnow right behind the dorsal most of the time, and have gotten a lot more flags than normal. also have been hooking a mojority of fish on this rig compared to others.
"pikerule2" said:
(it's funny that I usually end up going with 1-2 local non-MMA guys that never end up buying the minnows, or driving, or contributing anything really, but I get more lines out that way and they are otherwise good company).
Thats happens to me a lot also. The biggest thing that drove me to trying the double minnow was that the bait shops around here usually get nothing but 2-4" shiners, and I wanted something bigger. Also never underestimate just how well a perch or crappie will work. A 4-8" crappie is one of my favorite baits. I lost a hog pike right at the hole last weekend on a 5" crappie with its back tail cut off.
If anyone wants to do anyone pike fishing this winter in the Kalamazoo/Portage area, let me know. I am always looking for people to fish with, and am sort of losing a couple of my regular tip up fishing buddies.
First ice is already over in most parts but, I think the safest way and the most enjoyable way to catch ski's and pike through the ice would be to jig. Drill or chop a bunch of holes and spend just a couple of minutes in each, tieable leader, Salmo Chubby Darter or a #7 Jiggin Rap, maybe even a big blade bait like a Sonar, ripped 2-3 ft. Maybe even a big Airplane jig with the bucktail and a big shiner, even setting the hooks as soon as possible with tip ups and live bait some swallowing will happen, no way around it, especially with small trebles.
"Smada962" said:
If anyone wants to do anyone pike fishing this winter in the Kalamazoo/Portage area, let me know. I am always looking for people to fish with, and am sort of losing a couple of my regular tip up fishing buddies.
I tried Gull lake a couple times last year with OK success and wouldn't mind trying it again this year. I'll shoot you a PM if I plan to head out there this winter.
Dan
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