Home Forums Fishing Freshwater Tip ups

Ice fishing, of course, I have used tip ups, but I'll learn from anyone that will tell me more about them.

How do you folks use tip ups, or something else?

I like the Frabil circle ones.Dont freeze up as bad as others.The orange ones are good you get a 50/50 shot of snowmobiles running them over.

Ive seen enclosed boxes with a candle in them and sensor lights..

If the hole is freezing up make a little channel from the tip up hole. Get a coffee can put some charocal in it lite it up, should keep hole from freezing up.

Seen Canadians use branches, that was differ..

I only use my set of 6 for pike or burbot, enjoy catching my trout on rod and reel.

For burbot I put a 1" chunk of herring or whitefish on a 6/0 octopus hook with a 1oz weight about a foot up the line. I like to leave the bait about 3-6" off the bottom.

When fishing pike I'll put a half of a 6" herring or hooligan smelt on a 2 hook rig using 4/0 or 6/0 octopus hooks. I use the same Gamakatsu hooks I fish salmon with. I normally don't use a weight when setting tip ups for pike since I only fish 2-6 feet of water and generally only set the baits about a foot beneath the ice. With pike after I get a flag I'll let them run until they stop and take off again, they'll run a ways and then stop to swallow the bait that's when you put the hammer to them.

I used a set of the cheap box store tip ups for a year or two and hated them. I shopped around and ended up buying a set of BeaverDam tip ups made in Ardisam Wisconsin. The axle tubes are grease filled so they won't freeze and the bases are made of oak. They truly are a fine piece of machinery and a joy to use, no missed flags because of iced axles and they're made in the USA.

I've got round ones, regular flat folders, wood, plastic, tripods, spring loaded tube flags... They all do the same thing if you use em right.

My first tip would be, make insulated hole covers.

Over the past 30 yrs I've seen "hole covers" made out of carpet, carpet pad, old floor mats, temporary covers made from beer boxes, Styrofoam etc.

My personal favorite for home made hole covers is foil covered bubble sheet insulation. You can buy it in sheet cuts, cut it with a scissors, easy to work with. I like to cut a 2'x 1' piece of that bubble foil and fold it so I have a 1' square. I fold a good quality duct tape over the 3 cut edges to make a 2 ply 1' square. Then I will make a cut from the center of the folded edge to the center of the square. Next I fold duct tape over the 2 cut edges to the center.

That's a good tip up hole cover, seriously, make some.

They are very light weight, they last for many years and they insulate very well.

To use them, you set up your tip up like normal, but you slide this cover under the tip up. The tip up shaft slides into that slot cut to the center the hole cover. You set it all down tight to the snow/ice and bank/pack the edges of the foil cover if you like.

This keeps your fishing hole from freezing and drifting over.

More later.

When I use tip ups for pike I like to use live sucker minnows.

Live suckers can sometimes trip your tip up trigger, giving you false flags.



A lot of bait shops use these livestock castration bands as the rubber band to seal the plastic bags they sell bait in. Save a few of those bands or pick up a few 1/4" O rings. Traditional spinning shaft tip ups have a "T bar at the to which typically has a smooth side and a notched side. You can set your tip ups basically with 4 levels of trip tension. the lightest set is with the smooth side of the T bar with the spool out rotation making the bar climb down towards the flag spring. Next highest you give the T bar half a turn and put the flag under the T bar so that the bar is rotating up towards the flag, forcing the flag shaft down a bit before it trips free. Next two levels are with the notch side in the same order, rotation down towards the flag spring and then rotation up towards the flag tip.

If you need an extra heavy trigger for big live bait that is giving you false trips, slide one of those green donut bands over the T bar, you can use the smooth side or the notched side. If you slide the band or O ring over the notched side and place it just outside of the notch, you set the flag in the notch and you now have a very heavy trigger. You not only made the notch deeper but the band is grippy.

And it's fine to have a stout trip proof trigger like this because pike do not "nibble" on a live sucker, they hammer it.

My final pointers on tip up fishing.

If for pike, these tips are double important.

Get some bells for your flags.



Make a long gaff. Most gaffs they sell in bait shops and sporting stores look more like bailing hooks than gaffs. They are all hook and no handle.

You want mostly handle, very little hook. Take something like a wooden broom stick, about 4 feet long. Fasten a hook or make a hook for one end, the radius of the hook curl doesn't need to be any larger than a 50 cent piece.

I took a long shank construction screw, drove it into the end of a wood broomstick till the threads were burried and I had about 2-2.5" of smooth screw shank sticking out. then I cut the head off the screw and sharpened the shank. At this point it looked just like a trash picking stick. Next I heated the shank with a torch, grabbed it with a pliers, curled a hook shape and plunged it in cold water.

That was over 20 years ago, we're still using it today.

You want the long stick for a few reasons. Its a dandy walking stick on the ice when you are making the rounds checking tip ups. Pike roll, they roll that line up like crazy. Many times I have had a pike under the ice, at the hole but he wont come up because he's all rolled up and all I can see is the side or back of him up against the bottom of the ice hole, and a 40" pike wont come through a 10" hole sideways. Late season pike fishing you can have 3' of ice or better. Many times I have poked down the hole with the non hook end of the gaff stick to reach down further than you can reach with your arm to carefully nudge a pike backwards enough to present the head, then quickly flip the gaff around and reach down and carefully mouth hook him for extraction...









Lastly, hook set. When your flag pops up and you go running out there to see your T bar spinning like a helicopter blade.... Most people are going to reach for the board and try to carefully lift the tip up out of the hole, ever so stealthy, they lift until the spool clears the water, then they strip line off the spool.... Oh so tricky.... clever humans.... They set the tip up off to the side then grab the line and start taking up slack ever so slowly... waiting for the fish to run some more, or taking up the slack to feel if the fish is still there.... then eventually a line jerk happens and sometimes it works out.

That's all great fun.

But you can skip all that bullshit and catch more fish if you do this: You get to the tip up and the T bar is spinning. Grab that thing (the T bar), strike like a damn cobra, grab that thing while it's spinning, lock onto that T bar with your hand and jerk that thing out of the hole. You set the hook with the T bar firmly locked up in your hand, lift it and grab that line under the spool with your other hand. Set the tip up off to the side and start your tug of war with that fish.

If it's spinning, he's running out away from you, stringing line behind him with your bait and hook in his mouth, I guarantee, that is your best shot at a hook set. Don't be shy about it, your buddies might think you're nuts, until they figure out it works.

Yeah, a good gaff. Was out with a friend a few years ago and we both forgot. He hooked a really nice northern but not nearly so nice as your picture and the line got caught under a gill cover. We finally got it up but you could've sold tickets. Afterwards we about laughed our butts off.

Once made a tip-up, the rod holder kind, with an old fashioned voice chip. Would say, "I had a nibble," "I had a bite," etc. with an occasional "Here fishy fishy fishy" all in a very robotic sci fi voice. Had enough smarts to not trigger until a solid bite if you set it that way. Had it on Lake of the Woods near the door when a guy came in to check our licenses and kibitz. Well of course the tip-up gave an "I had a bite" behind him without triggering and he about crapped. Funny!

Thanks men, I have made a gaff hook for my father.
I heated, and shaped a pith fork tine, even brazed a barb on it.
Mostly I have seen the gaff used to lift the coffee off the fire.

All good advice here. One other thing. Look for the tip ups with the large spools so you can fit as much braided or vinyl line as possible.

It doesn't take long for a big pike to pull all the line off the smaller spools and you don't want to have to try and set the hook when they are running.

Great thread! Lots of good info here.

I am partial to the icerigger. . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYFTmkv6-7M

Nothing below the water except line, and I get to fight the fish with a rod and reel with a good drag. I haven't taken BIG pike with them, but have caught plenty of pike < 7# and lots of panfish. Tether the rod (as someone here suggested - thanks!) to the rigger, and the rigger to something bigger than the hole. the other thing I like about them is that I will set up a dead stick with one as soon as I drill holes for the fishtrap. Then I can set it up, get the camera down, set up the heater and lantern, and get the jigging rod down. Not many false trips, unless I kick it. Hope to give it a try on lake trout next week.

And NerthernDave's iodeas on the gaff are spot on, and have got me off my butt to build one. I find that I more often need something to PUSH the line/hook/fish down, rather than pull up, but then I haven't been doing big pike! ;-( In addition to the hook, I am thinking of adding a piece of UHMW plastic smoothed over into a V-ish shape to serve as a pusher. Also plan to mark the shaft in inches (you Canucks can mark it metric - but if God wanted us to be metric Jesus would have had 10 apostles! - for measuring ice thickness and fish. Other ideas?

Working with scrap/junk, the first might not be the last.

I made a gaff from a show stick, hook a heat bent pitchfork tine. and hose clamps.
all I need now, is a fish to gaff.

Does the ice depth matter, if it's safe ice?

Ice depth is just educational, after it is safe. Until it gets thick enough that we need the auger extension. And here we have a 22 - 36 protected slot for pike, so we need a 22" ruler somewhere in the house. .

I like to know how much ice I'm on as well.

We could talk about cleats while we are sort of on the topic.

My long gaff is used a lot in the walleye house for pushing down a hole to pop mono line free from an ice crack that th line has found at the bottom of the ice.

A gaff that floats is a very good thing.

As far as ice thickness, most of my experience is on ice from 10" to 40" thick.

We are at around 30" currently.



One more thing.

You should be able to drop an unopened can of beer into a fishing hole from waist height and the can of beer should come back up and float in the hole. If it don't come back, you either don't have enough ice thickness or your beer is too crappy.

I've only done that when I'm close to being spooled and have not had good luck with catches. Maybe they ran too long??

You've not been tip up fishing with me?

I use the Frabil orange ones with mixed success for pike. My wife gave me a "Jaw Jacker" for Christmas but I have yet to have an opportunity to use it. Looks like a good idea. We used to build something similar with a wooden "Y" frame that had a reel mounted to the tail and a mousetrap in the crotch of the y. Line went over the mousetrap trigger and through an eye hole down into the water. Fish bites, mousetrap goes off, sets the hook and pops a flag (old utility locating flags worked well). Cheap as borscht and we caught a pile of pike on them with Slader jigs and a minnow.

SS

I don't fish for pike very much but we spend a ton of time fishing for lake trout. They are notorious for taking a ton of line. What we have been doing recently is rubber banding the line at a certain distance. Fish takes the bait, runs to the band and..yo yo, hook is normally set right in the corner of the jaw. If the fish breaks the band, it is usually over 10 pounds. Saves a ton of time reeling line back on the spool. Especially at -0s.

I don't know if it would work for pike or not.

Dave. . while your beer test is a good idea, my fishing partners have terrible taste in beer. Or actually, no taste in beer. When I brought good beer, it disappeared quickly. . And there was never enough to numb the taste of the remaining beers, which I suspect would fail your floatation test. I have downgraded my beer in increments so that it is not as appealing to others, and I get to have a few. Milwaukee Special reserve. . 30 cans for $14. Probably doesn't hurt, but I don't cry as much as when the Sam Adams disappears. .

Fred