Pike

[ChervT]

What's your thoughts on using dead bait for pike versus the the live stuff? Any success on the store bought shad and stuff?

[tferg7]

I never fished live bait for pike/musky too often but i’ve seen guys say they catch them on both and seen guys that won’t fish anything but live.

[butcher]

Not sure where you live or fish ChervT, but there are almost no pike in Pennsylvania. There’s basically none in eastern PA and only a handful of lakes in western PA that have fishable populations of pike.

In short, there’s probably not many fishermen on the PA forums that will have much personal experience ice fishing pike. If you want to learn about ice fishing pike with live bait, dead bait or have any other type of pike-related questions, I would recommend:

1. Check the threads on the bottom of the main Ice Shanty forum. There are threads devoted to specific species like pike, trout, crappie, perch,etc.

2. Put a post on one of the other state forums where pike are more common (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, etc.)

Hope this helps!

[Icefishin Wizz]

Wallenpaupack has a decent wild population as does the Susquehanna river. Two excellant ice fishing choices in NEPA. I dont use dead bait for pike but if i was going to I would avoid the packaged store bought offerings. I did see 2 pound bags of frozen smelt in the supermarket thatn8s getting closer what you need.

[paramedicjake]

We target Pike on a regular basis, and we do it in PA on a few lakes. Feel free to PM me about a few locations to meet up with the Pike Patrol. And we get pizza delivered to the launch!!

[Jim_R]

Dead smelt, on/near the bottom, or just under the ice will smack'em.

[Marauder2008]

Caught my PR 44inch pike using dead bait. Suspended almost vertically using a hand-tied quick strike rig.

[PikeChaser198]

We also target pike all the time in PA on the ice. We use the largest live shiners we can find and catch fish all the time. We aren’t pulling out 40 inch + fish like you see in other states but we are still catching them. Glendale has a good population of Northerns   

[Jim_R]

+1 ...hand-tied quick strike rig.