tip up rig, anyone used em?

[wendall]

i recently got new ice gear catalog, and saw a tip up bait rig in it.  i think it was called a bait spreader.  what it looked to be was a two stiff wire leaders that would "T" off of the line at the bottom.  at the end of the leader was a little mono leader that the hooks were attached to.  this would allow you to hook two minnows (or bait of choice) and have it seperated, at the same depth.  anyone ever used anything like this?  seems like it would be easy to make on your own.  let me know if you have used this set up, and how it works out.


wendall

[camo_fish]

I use a similar rig, I put a 3 way swivel on the mono leader, off side 5-7" leader with treble hook and off the bottom 3 way I put 5' or 10' mono leader to the bottom treble hook. I've caught several double perch at the same time using a 3'-5' apart leader with little bait. Use have to be careful and aware of the extra hooks as your pulling in, the extra hook can get hung on the top ot bottom of the hole.
Good luck, I love using double hook rigs for perch.

[fish_hooked]

It sounds like a similar concept to the crappie rig, only with a crappie rig, you fish two hooks on a line at different depths.  These work great for panfish, but can also become a tangled mess with fish on.  Give it a try.

[wendall]

the one i saw seemed to have a solid wire leader going out to each side with a mono leader attached to it.  this i would imagine would keep the lines straight while in the water.  i thought it would be good for bass, walleye or pike having two minnows swimming in circles right next to each other.  i guess ill just have to order one and give it a try.


wendall

[FullTmeDad]

It sounds like a rig we used in Cape Cod Bay for flounder, called a spreader. They were made from heavy gauge wire like a "T" and there is a snelled long shank hook on each side usually with a small red bead and a bank or pyramid sinker in the middle. If you get a nice sized fish it will wrap the whole works up, but it does get two baits down. I can't see using them for tip-up's though, especially trying to untangle them after each fish.

[wendall]

I usually don't even get one fish a trip on my tip ups where i live.  I set one out with the hopes of getting something larger while i jig for the pan fish.  I mostly go to local forrest preserves where there isn't a large population of game fish.


wendall

[grumpymoe]

my partner uses the spreader rig--i personally wont use them because they are heavyily weighted, when you get 2 larger fish on it can be awkward getting them up the hole and tangled and you get alot of false tipups when they nibble the bait but otherwise they work great for perch and other small fish that feed in schools