Hey guys now that winter is here I'm trying to plan some ice fishing for musky. I'm thinking of using decoys on a quick strike rig but also using 8in suckers on tip ups but don't want them to set off tips prematurely. My biggest concern would be fish swallowing the hook on tip ups. Any advice for safe musky fishing in winter?
Tough to fish suckers on tip ups in my opinion. Bigger suckers need heavy hooksets which are tricky with only a hole. Smaller suckers on a circle hook are safe if able to be set immediately upon the take, but dangerous if they get swallowed.
I would go big jigging spoon.
Others may be better than me for advice, though.
I have spent many days panfishing Murray during the past couple of winters. Using an old school AquaVu camera with perch shape/color camera. There are always muskies hanging around the weed beds holding bluegills. While pike will just lay in a spot, muskies are cruising around in slow motion, scattering the bluegills as they go. Kind of fun sitting in my shanty listening to the mob of fishermen around me complain as the fishing 'shuts down' when a muskie moves under them.
The muskies are curious and I have some great videos of them coming right up to look at my camera. I have played a little bit with jigging spoons and rubber baits but the muskies totally ignore them. They will occasionally grab a wildly struggling hooked bluegill, thus contributing to the bitching about muskie eating all the big panfish. Really annoys me to hear that over one bluegill loss when over 1000 gills leave the ice in buckets on a busy day.
There are a lot of tip-ups set on this lake, some with decoy size suckers but I have yet to personally see a muskie landed, only pike.
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