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Well I almost never run tipups when ice fishing for char, rainbows, and lakers. I always have much better luck jigging with two different baits and two different rods. I have exculsivly switched over to ice fishing with spring bobbers as my strike indicator. Lakers and Char are by far the lightest bighting fish on the ice fishing scene. Since I made the switch to sensitive spring bobbers I have increased my catch trifold. My number one go to lure for char and laketrout is an inch and a half long WHITE sweedish pimple with half a herring on a size 2 single hook. If it is the head of the herring, i make the head point to the bottom of the lake. If it is the tail, I hook it so the tail fin is closest to the bottom of the lake. Presentation is very important for char and laketrout. Just because your ice fishing does not mean they will just eat whatever smells like fish! Deadsticking a chunk of herring works really well for me, it works better than deadsticking a whole herring almost every time. I just use about an inch piece and completly hide the hook and leave it about half inch off the bottom with a tiny little weight. I fish drop offs the come up to about 20 feet and no deeper. I like to use clear 6lb line if i dont think ill get into lakers or char over 20 lbs. I will bump up to power pro 30lb test and have a flourocarbon 15lb leader if I am fishing for giants. Herring is by far my go to bait when it comes to those two fish. Other than that I like to use 5" white mister twisters soaked in uncured salmon eggs. I just throw the mister twisters in the ziplock bags after unthawing them and throw them in the cooler and hit the road. Shrimp seems to work pretty well for rainbows and smaller char, but I have never caught a big char on small chunks of shrimp. All my big char have come off of whitefish tipped spoons, herring chunks, or a sweedish pimple tipped with herring.I always bring a little pint size ziplock of eggs with me too and jig with a forage minnow and eggs. That seems to work for most things if herring does not work. The way I set up is I drill two holes about three feet apart and slowly jig one and watch the other rod. I think the fish see both the baits and it really helps intice them to take a smack. A lot of the times I will have a strike on the one I am jigging then my other rod will try to take off to the hole haha. I catch a lot of lakers on the rod I am not jigging. If I deadstick both though I dont get half the strikes. Oh and one tip that will really help you out. Dont use a camera or shine lights down a hole when fishing for char, lakers, burbot. They are very shy when it comes to my aqua view camera when the lights are on. Other than that, choose a location where there is fish! Have someone take you out and have them show you the ropes. i would like to but I just had knee surgery and its going to be tough for me to get out before I head back to college.