gosh darnet! no more tipup!

[jbscowboy99]

over the weekend me and a couple buddies went fishing overnight at a lake were there are ALOT of sleds riding around. well we got to are spot at 11:00 am saturday morning and planned to stay till sunday morning. well late saturday night (or it could have been early sunday morning dont really remember) me and some guys are playing cards in the shanty when my buddy out side says"josh that sled just creamed your tipup!" needless to say i as hot! but my buddies got me under control and one jumped on his wheeler to go talk to the guy that clipped my tipup.anyway the guy on the sled came over and paid for my tipup cause it was done!.turned out he was pretty cool. what im getting at is i had a reflector clipped on my tipup and the flag was neon orange,so what else can i do to keep my tipups safe while im out on the ice at night?
  thanks and good fishin jib

 

[MnSportsman]

I went & got some of those Mini orange cones, that kids use as "slalom" markers when skatboarding/etc.. They're bright & sit high enuff that there's no mistake they are there. Plus they are lightweight & don't take up a lot of room. At night, just get some Glow "Cyalume" tubes, break them & sit on the top, in the hole at the end. I use the little cyalume tubes on my tipups a nite too, as they're cheap/lightweight/easy to tell a Flag pop.
Good Luck!

[jbscowboy99]

thanks and i will be getting some of those light sticks so i wont lose anymore tipups!

[MnSportsman]

No sweat, THat's why we're all here & I'm glad to help.
I just want to add , I usually put some ice shavings from the hole I drill over the bottom flange of the cone, to keep it from tipping or blowing away in a good wind.Never had a "freeze up , either."
Go Fish!

[fishinjim]

Been using the orange cones for years, with one change, I use reflective tape around the top of the cone.

[Barleydog]

When I used to fish walleyes at night in the midwest I had the same dilemma!  I used bamboo garden sticks, (about 4 ft. high) and at the top I put 6" of reflective tape like a tip-up flag.  Then I placed more tape 1 ft. in progression until it reached the bottom of the stick.  Just take some of your auger slush and make a pile that you can place your reflective stick into and it's done!  We didn't have glow sticks to use back then, but they sure would come in handy!

[MnSportsman]

It's too bad that we have to do these things just for quads & sleds, But they also help if people start to crowd ya.... let's them know where you already are & will hopefully stay back a bit.

[Mainehazmt]

Ive lost a few but the worst was a truck hit it at 2 am! #1 he had no business out there then his reason  was " I saw some lights on"  Well I dont fish at that place or eat or drink or tell anyone to go there anymore cause the kid was just like his dad  I now use Lathes stuck in the snow and top it with those cheap cones

[ADK Tank]

Another thing that can help is to not fish near the main snowmobile trails on the lake especially at night, I know it doesn't keep everyone on a sled from hitting your stuff but most people try to stay on the trails. As someone who used to do a lot of snowmobile riding on the lake it's not easy to spot a tip up at night especially if there is no reflective tape on them and it's not always a case of them being an idiot or not paying attention. Some of the guys that I used to ride with would complain about the ice fisherman just as much as the ice fisherman complain about them when there would be a tip up right in the middle of a main snowmobile trail. We all have to share the lake and try to see thing from both sides. Now if they aim for it or are off trail and a jerk about then that's a different story.

[miket.]

well lets see , you bring a salt water set up and a couple of medium sized bunker snaggers,notify the rude people that you don't care to loose any more equipment to their reckless ness and that if they don't cut the crap out that you are gonna start with the snagger unless they quit it. i have lost two tip ups and a deadstick because someone wants to be cute with there snow mobileing. as far as the oh I'm sorry i didn't see it trick, that will not fly with me because trust me you can more than see my belongings. how does anyone feel about this.

[John_BZ]

Another thing that can help is to not fish near the main snowmobile trails on the lake especially at night, I know it doesn't keep everyone on a sled from hitting your stuff but most people try to stay on the trails. As someone who used to do a lot of snowmobile riding on the lake it's not easy to spot a tip up at night especially if there is no reflective tape on them and it's not always a case of them being an idiot or not paying attention. Some of the guys that I used to ride with would complain about the ice fisherman just as much as the ice fisherman complain about them when there would be a tip up right in the middle of a main snowmobile trail. We all have to share the lake and try to see thing from both sides. Now if they aim for it or are off trail and a jerk about then that's a different story.

As first an icefisherman and second a snowmobiler i will agree. to an extent if you do not want a tipup hit keep it off the main race track at night and don't place them too far from a shanty. the headlight on a sled doesn't give you the same beam that you car does. tip-ups are hard to see even when going slow at night. don't get me wrong i get very angry when i have a tip-up get smoked but if i placed it on the main path, i pretty much had it coming. most guys aren't going to hit one on purpose and sometimes they don't even realize that they hit it. of coarse there are the idiots out there. like he said we all have to share the lake and nobody has more of a right to be out there over anybody else.

[miket.]

well put sdk tank,

[adkbrookie]

 i believe you can set the tip ups wherever you want. if someone runs it over then it is their fault. i do believe that it says in the regs book that it is illegal to interfeer with the legal taking of fish in any manner. i like the snagging hook idea, the only thing i would use those for.

[John_BZ]

i believe you can set the tip ups wherever you want. if someone runs it over then it is their fault. i do believe that it says in the regs book that it is illegal to interfeer with the legal taking of fish in any manner. i like the snagging hook idea, the only thing i would use those for.

well look at it this way. legal is one thing. common sense is another. some beleive they can set a tip-up anywhere. snowmobilers beleive they can ride anywhere. if one sets a trap on a main drag and it gets hit i think the fisherman got what they had coming. if the light bulb didn't illuminate in their head and the thought that maybe they shouldn't put a tip-up right in the middle of all those tracks didn't go throught their head they needed a reality check. it is different if they snowmobiler came too close to your shack or if they aimed right for the tip-up. but if you set a trap 500 feet away, it gets smoked, and they rider doesn't stop, all i can say is oh well. it is a risk you have to take on some lakes. liken it to parking on the street, but doing so during a snow, knowing a plow is going to have to come through and getting mad when you car gets plowed in and stuck. another thing to keep in mind is state snowmobile trials go through lakes in some areas. if one was to put a tip-up on the route, they are asking for somebody to disassemble it for them.

[jbscowboy99]

on the lake i was fishing there is no main trail. it looks like fireflies running in all directions!if the snowmobiler saw my tipup or not i dont know, im just glad i got my money for it.

[ADK Tank]

The Sacandaga is a tough one to fish at night, there are a ton of sleds out there and with all of the bars on all shores of the lake you could have sleds coming from any direction. If you fish out there at night, it's just a chance your taking. Not saying it's right but it's not going to change so the best thing to do in my opinion is fish a lake that doesn't have that type of snowmobile traffic if you aren't willing to accept the possibility of a tip up getting creamed or making sure you put out plenty of reflectors around your setup.

[eye hunter]

JBS, Have you got any of those lighted floats that they use in the open water ? I bet they would work. They have a flat style battery in them. I have seen them at Wally World. 

[Fish_Tko]

i never lost a tip-up to a sledder or 4 wheeler, but i hit one two years ago on accident. I have a rack on the back of my quad for my fish trap guide and had moved from one spot to another and instead of lifting my shack back up on my rack i just tied a rope and pulled it along. The snow was kind of deep and i was scanning, looking to make sure i wasn't going to hit anY tip-ups(they were quite a few out in that area) while going less than 5 mph. And i look down and its too late to hit the brakes its already under my machine. In the split second i had time to make a decision i thought that my shanty is on my rack i should be able to go right over it and not touch it. That is when i realized i was dragging my da*n shanty and i ran right over it. Got off and talked to the guy. Luckily somehow i didn't bust it and help him rebait and reset it. Felt pretty bad about it, but the guy was still a little t.o.'d

[JCaughtem]

over the weekend me and a couple buddies went fishing overnight at a lake were there are ALOT of sleds riding around. well we got to are spot at 11:00 am saturday morning and planned to stay till sunday morning. well late saturday night (or it could have been early sunday morning dont really remember) me and some guys are playing cards in the shanty when my buddy out side says"josh that sled just creamed your tipup!" needless to say i as hot! but my buddies got me under control and one jumped on his wheeler to go talk to the guy that clipped my tipup.anyway the guy on the sled came over and paid for my tipup cause it was done!.turned out he was pretty cool. what im getting at is i had a reflector clipped on my tipup and the flag was neon orange,so what else can i do to keep my tipups safe while im out on the ice at night?
  thanks and good fishin jib
(Image removed from quote.)(Image removed from quote.)
 

Then gosh darn it no more sled

[d3]

THis is a tuff topic.  There have been many good things said on this post.  All I have too say is do not put your tilts in a run of a snowmobile trail whetehr it is a state one or just one that every body uses.  THere are alot of greaat ideas on here about reflective tape.  I do not fish at night here but if I was on a lake with sleds at night I would probaly use the bamboo trick and then take light guage string like squid line and run it from each one abviously fishing close together and I would hang reflective tape on some sort of cloth so I could cloths pin it to the string.  You can then remove this setup put it all a away in a little pouch except the bamboo rods and have it forever.  I think that would give you the best shot of no crash.  I would be more concerned with a drunk crashing into my shantee.  Know that would suck.  My 2 cents.


D3

[JT]

I use the old driveway reflectors n old junked carbon arrows to mark my holes as I have had a few get run over...Beaver dams are snowmobile proof btw!lol!