Bringing a few buddies ice fishing on the Gordon Flowage to catch some Northern Pike on Friday.. The Flowage is one of the better fisheries to catch Pike in numbers but due to the heavy population of the fish the size is stunted. Most are 3 - 5 pounds and one can catch a 10 pounder plus.. We catch Pike ice fishing by doing the following.... I know the lake well so I knows where to catch em..
1. Get to the location. I will be fishing in an area where the water depth is about 6 to 10 feet of water.
2. Drill the hole. I have a strike master double blade laser auger that goes through the ice like a knife through hot butter. And it is my understanding that the ice is up to 15 inches thick.. -22 degrees here the other night.
3. Get the excess ice and slush away from the hole and use an ice scoop to get the ice out of the hole.
4. Use a tip up with nylon ice fishing line with a 20 lb steel liter at the end. There are many different types of tip ups it doesn't matter. Use a treble hook and hook a Shiner Minnow, Sucker Minnow through the back fin and place a sinker about 2 inches above the liter. The sinker keeps the minnow down. A dead smelt can work as well and sometimes the Pike prefer it. Place the line about 3 feet down from the hole and set up your tip up.. Easy instructions are on the back on how to set the tip up.
5. Catch the fish.. If tip up set up properly a flag will go up and alert you that fish is on.. Most times you will see the spool spinning. That means that the fish is swimming away with the bait. Sometimes the spool won't be spinning that could mean that the fish is eating the bait or you had one take it and spit it out. Or the wind was good and falsely set your tip up.. Now when the spool is spinning some will wait for it to stop and let the fish eat the minnow then set the hook. I don't have the patience for that. My theory is that if the spool is spinning the fish has it in his mouth. So I set the hook immediately.
6. Hook set.. When spool is spinning I just pick up tip up kind of slow and just yank on the line. If you feel a tug on the line, then you got em. If spool is now spinning, I wait about a minute to see if spool will spin.. If spool don't spin then I lift tip up slowly and gingerly grab the line and tighten the tension and give a good pull. If it tugs back you got em..
7. Each fisherman in Wisconsin is allowed 3 tip ups each. So my party will have 4 people so we will have 12 total. We take turns.. Some days the tip ups will go up every 15 minutes and sometimes not. Make sure there is plenty of beer and cribbage board, we use a cooker and cook out and BS. Friday will be a balmy 15 degrees so it should be a great day.
1. Get to the location. I will be fishing in an area where the water depth is about 6 to 10 feet of water.
2. Drill the hole. I have a strike master double blade laser auger that goes through the ice like a knife through hot butter. And it is my understanding that the ice is up to 15 inches thick.. -22 degrees here the other night.
3. Get the excess ice and slush away from the hole and use an ice scoop to get the ice out of the hole.
4. Use a tip up with nylon ice fishing line with a 20 lb steel liter at the end. There are many different types of tip ups it doesn't matter. Use a treble hook and hook a Shiner Minnow, Sucker Minnow through the back fin and place a sinker about 2 inches above the liter. The sinker keeps the minnow down. A dead smelt can work as well and sometimes the Pike prefer it. Place the line about 3 feet down from the hole and set up your tip up.. Easy instructions are on the back on how to set the tip up.
5. Catch the fish.. If tip up set up properly a flag will go up and alert you that fish is on.. Most times you will see the spool spinning. That means that the fish is swimming away with the bait. Sometimes the spool won't be spinning that could mean that the fish is eating the bait or you had one take it and spit it out. Or the wind was good and falsely set your tip up.. Now when the spool is spinning some will wait for it to stop and let the fish eat the minnow then set the hook. I don't have the patience for that. My theory is that if the spool is spinning the fish has it in his mouth. So I set the hook immediately.
6. Hook set.. When spool is spinning I just pick up tip up kind of slow and just yank on the line. If you feel a tug on the line, then you got em. If spool is now spinning, I wait about a minute to see if spool will spin.. If spool don't spin then I lift tip up slowly and gingerly grab the line and tighten the tension and give a good pull. If it tugs back you got em..
7. Each fisherman in Wisconsin is allowed 3 tip ups each. So my party will have 4 people so we will have 12 total. We take turns.. Some days the tip ups will go up every 15 minutes and sometimes not. Make sure there is plenty of beer and cribbage board, we use a cooker and cook out and BS. Friday will be a balmy 15 degrees so it should be a great day.
