lots of ice and cold temps what trap is best

[akdube]

hey all will be in the bangor area soon and would like to pick up some laker traps. I fish and live i9n alask and currently fish heritage traps i picked up last time in maine. What other traps compare to these. when we leave our burbot(cusk) traps out all night we frequently have 3-4 inchs of ice in the morning so a trap with a long down shaft might be a good option. also where can i get some LARGE flags for the same. i
I would likie to get some large redfins and maybe a few whitefish to freeze and bring back as well. If i could get some help from one of you fellas i would be happy to donate some red salmon fillets or halibut for ur bait salmon for bait....works for me

[pikeking]

Indian Hill Ice Traps. Hands down, the best out there. No wind flags and nice smooth reels. You can get them in the colors you want and they are made from hard wood. Also each one is hand made so each one had very good detail... Check them out...

[jacksmelt71]

hard to beat the heritages for the price. jacktraps are nice too but are real sensitive for bigger baits and are expensive. i painted my heritages black and put 4'' by 5'' felt flags on them. they flap in the wind and are easy to see. mine are bright green. bright red shows up good too. good luck!

[Sinnian]

I wouldn't risk damage to my tip ups cusk fishing.  I made these about 20 years ago for cusk fishing, and they have never let me down.  When cusk fishing you can not have a free spool so these work out great.  Just a 2X2 board about 14-18" long with roofing nails on top to attach you line to, and a nail on the side to wrap your line around when it is out.

[MEbearhunter]

I have had Heritage Lakers for a long time pretty hard to beat them!

[fishlessman]

all you need for cusk is a 1x3 board long enough not to fall thru the hole. you want something that a ski mobile can run over

[ricsess]

  JACK TRAPS  ONLT WAY TO GO  HA  HA 

[Coach]

  JACK TRAPS  ONLT WAY TO GO  HA  HA 

Come to your senses Rick what are you thinking. You know that Heritage traps are the only way to go!!!.

[VENT]

i've had my heritage lakers for about 16yrs now and the only issue i have with their performance in icey, or extremely cold weather is when the reel freezes to the mounting stem. if this happens and the reel starts to turn, it turns the stem right out of the wood. come spring time, you can dive to the bottom of the lake to retrieve your reel. therefore, i have made a slight mod to the mounting system.

[akdube]

Sounds like ill just pick up a few more heritages then. By the way there is no bait fish in alaska. No red fins no shiners of any sorts no smelts there r suckers and white fish which there is no limit or closed season on. Most lakes up here state no live bait so all and all we use hardware or herring suckers if we gottem and whitefish but they r pretty elusive.

[jacksmelt71]

so the gamefish feed primarily on suckers and whitefish up there? must be a heck of alot of them in those lakes then.

[Powow]

Why buy a tip up you have to modify to get it to work. seems crazy.

[campfindit2]

I find my heritage lakers drag tightens as the wood swells. Was going to overboar the hole but VENT's mod looks like a good fix. How is the spool attached on the Indianhills? I would like to bring my number of tipups to 30, need 14 more.

[jacksmelt71]

when i buy a new heritage first thing i do is pull the reel and shaft out of the hole in the wood. apply a little gorilla glue on the shaft and push it back in. it will never fall out. as far as the drag goes i dont use it anyway. it freezes up in the real cold. i give about a 1/8th of play on the shaft for the reel so its free spinning and put a tab of loctite to keep it from moving from there . could replace the existing nuts w/ a locknut and washer if you want but the loctite works good too.

[campfindit2]

I tend to use zero drag also. I like the locktite idea. We will use pirch for pike bait at times, guess I will just have to trim a little extra tail off them.

[JDK]

I tend to use zero drag also. I like the locktite idea. We will use pirch for pike bait at times, guess I will just have to trim a little extra tail off them.

Do a search for rubber bands.

[jacksmelt71]

gonna have to try that this yr. ! esp. with the jacksmelts i use.

[northernnyice]

have no problems with my lakers, and i pound em

[jiml]

Stopped by kittery trading post over the weekend.  They have Heritage Lakers in the new all black, all orange, and all pink paint.  I wish they sold the all black ones 3 years ago when i outfitted myself with a set of 6!!!  I'm thinking of taking mine apart and painting them myself before this season. 

[royjulius]

I ordered 1 heritage last night, just to check it out. If I like it, I'll get 2 more.

[jacksmelt71]

Stopped by kittery trading post over the weekend.  They have Heritage Lakers in the new all black, all orange, and all pink paint.  I wish they sold the all black ones 3 years ago when i outfitted myself with a set of 6!!!  I'm thinking of taking mine apart and painting them myself before this season. 

      i just taped up whai i didnt want overspray on and used a good exterior gloss black oil base spray paint. open em up and hang them upside down on a rope by the reels. no need to dissassemble. i touch them up again every dec. dont put too much paint around where the cross pieces bolt on or youll have a tough time to fold them.

[capedeer/fish]

Indian hill is the best trap I've seen!

[jiml]

Indian hill is the best trap I've seen!

You are probably right about Indian Hill Traps. It is good to see him making some top notch gear here in Massachusetts.  Unfortunately I did not know about Indian Hill when I bought mine 3 years ago or I would probably own them. 

[Budzer]

   Because I regularly ice fish a lake that has very high potential of an Illinois record Muskie and Walleye I figured out a way to use a rod and reel with these HEATED AUTO JIGGING tipups. You can see the video showing the set up and full operation by going here:

 

 When I was younger I landed a 40" 18 1/2 lb. Pike by hand on a tip up and it is very tense and has a high potential of losing the fish without the give of a rod and drag of a reel. Now I am looking forward to hooking a giant with this set up. So far 2 days with 2 setups both rigged with 10" plus herring and still waiting for first monster. I just hope someone else is close by to use my camera to video it so I can share the moment. Lance.

[Lance Yates]

Sorry try this to see video: