Pike rigs and presentations?

[Nerka]

Wondering what everyones' preferences for pike baits and presentations are on the hard water? I know many folks use smelt or cut bait, has anyone ever tried any alternatives (I have access to as many 2-3" Redear Sunfish as I can catch) or gotten lucky with something new? I'm also interested in depths, structures to look for, hook sizes, time of day, or whatever comes to mind.  No idea is a bad one in my book (limitations do apply).  I've been ice fishing around Missoula for 8 or so years and have never iced a pike...I'd like to change that stat this year.  Thanks in advance for your comments.

[lundin-loading]

I would stick with smelt on the tip ups, i use 20lb flouro for leader with #4 treble hooks and change leader if it gets nicked, rapala rattle traps and big spoons tipped with meat will definitley produce toothy critters on the jiggin rod

[mtjohn]

I think smelt would work better than sunfish, since its an oily fish and puts off more scent. As for hooks, a lot of people are gonna tell you to use steel leaders and quick strike rigs, but in my experience, a plain old size 2 snelled hook works the best. I fished 3 tipups with quick strikes and three with snells, and I only got 1 flag with the quick strikes, but I got about 10 flags on the snells.  Also, the flag with the quick strike was spit out, and I caught all the fish on snells.
MT

[Nerka]

What depths do you guys have the most success with, and where do you hang your rig, or is that more lake dependent? I saw some hogs lurking on the bottom of Salmon Lake last year in about 17 fow in a sandy spot between some weed beds(~mid Jan), but they just bumped my bait and kept cruising.  I also know folks have success in shallow weed beds, is there other structure I should look for?

[lundin-loading]

I like dead bait resting right on or near bottom, but pike see up so any where in the water column should work. Fish all depths ranging from just enough room for the fish (12") all the way to 20'. In my opinion pike fishing with tipups is a number game, so fish waters you can use 6 lines on or get a hole bunch of friends and set out a spread.

[J_Edwards]

I use 75lb titanium leaders, 135lb planer board line.  I've been broke plenty running lines at peck on lesser stuff and 30lb fluro leader.  So I went over board,  I do quite well on pike and eyes still hit on them, so I stick to it. I use #3 gamakatsu trebels for everything.   If I'm fishing an area I could pick up eyes, I use 5-7" suckers, other wise smelt,  I like to let it sit around and get stinky.  I like to be up off the bottom, 2-3' up in 5-15 and clear up to 5' off the bottom in 20'.   I've caught fish in a foot of water, but usually those flags don't do much for me, so I usually don't set anything under 5' these days.

[Hook them Lipps]

I seem to have a lot of action on 2 inch jigs tipped with a little sucker or smelt.  Jig it on the bottom and stir things up a little.  Pike could be anywhere usually on the bottom.  Along drop offs weedbeds or any structure change.

[Nerka]

Lots of good info and variation, all good stuff to add to the quiver of knowledge.  Anyone ever try a chum bag for predatory fish, or any fish for that matter? (I know pike are mainly visual hunters, but this cant hurt, in my opinion).

[Cornbread]

I use a home made rig that doesn't have a name that a friend made up for me, for fishing frozen suckers, smelt, sunfish etc. He sells them for pretty cheap too, they are done on whatever choice of wire leader test you want. I usually use 60lb. If you want his contact info let me know and I can give you his phone number, the rigs are pretty nice.  When I get back home I'll take pictures but basically I pass a wire through a sucker or smelt from the top of its head and come out under its chin, then I put this right on the back of that wire and pull it through and then snap a #3 gamakatsu treble on it and pull the treble back up in to the chin so the hooks come out under its gills then the rig has a regular snelled hook further up on it that I hook through the back of the sucker or smelt so it hangs normal. They work better than quick strike rigs and because most pike take my bait head first I don't loose any by getting bit off halfway up my sucker. Nearly every catch I have they have the treble in them if they only get one hook, but often I get both in them. I often use sunfish as bait too, and with them the treble comes out the belly after passing the wire through them from top to bottom and the snell goes up top. I did my best to sort of draw out how this looks on a sucker and a sunfish. Dotted areas are supposed to show that it is inside the bait, sorry I am not much of an artist so the hook sizes aren't exactly to scale to say the least:

 

[Nerka]

Thanks Cornbread!  I've experimented with a less cryptic, yet similar homemade setup for Lakers, but I'll have to try hiding the wire & bottom treble in the belly.  I suppose you could even set these things up the night before a trip, and not waste the time while your on the ice. Do the sunfish work any better or worse for you?

BTW Sweet diagram, and you're a good enough artist for this place.  I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to find a sunfish pic too.

[coldcreekchris]

cornbread once again has it nailed...i usually take 2 6 inch leaders and at the swivel union i put one treble on the hump of the bait.. the other is a gaff type treble through the cavity....zimmer is selling his sausage stink soak that he uses to scent his cut bait for macks...i have only been using it for a few weeks..but the fish seem to like it.....you would think that pike would like a nice looking sunfish or perch but it seems that some stinky ass cut or smelt soaked in some type of attractant works well....

[Cornbread]

Sunfish are my secret bait LOL! Basically I use them when the pike around here start getting smelt shy because everybody and their brother throws smelt at them year round up here. In late winter when the bite gets slow they won't take smelt at all so I switch to sunfish and or sucker minnows. I use a piece of hanger wire to get the leader deal shoved through them dragging the leader along behind and then snap it to the treble. So in answer to your question sunfish work about the same as suckers do in early season, which is usually not as good as smelt or mackrel if you can get those but in late season they work a lot better than smelt or mackrel because the stinky fish seem to spook them around here. I also use fairly small sunfish to do this. I let my kids catch them and then we freeze them up each summer. I'll take a picture next time I am home of one of them so you can see what size I use.

[J_Edwards]

Sweet set up corn bread I like it.

One of my other tricks I used to do, is a few beads and a smile blade on live bait, so there's a little flash when they start to run there's a little added flash to provoke a strike, not sure how much it helped, I do quite well on straight wire and hooks.

[Cornbread]

Ok here are the smallest ones I use, I use them toward the very end of season before ice out when the pike are really sluggish and sleepy and are only taking small baits, they are about 2.5" long or maybe 3" at most:


Here are the larger ones that are from 5" - 7":


*Note don't freeze them in tinfoil like I tried this year, it doesn't work well at all, use butcher paper or ziplocks like I did last year.

Here is the pike rig I use under my tipups, you can see how the top single hook is attached to the wire by one of those things that holds spinner blades on an inline spinner, this seems to help put less kinks in the leader when the pike get caught with that one and thrash and try to wrap around etc. If you guys want the contact info for the guy who makes these for me let me know and I can PM you his contact info:

[IceCreeper]

Sunfish are legal bait?

[JayHelfrich]

Sunfish are legal bait?

Dead sunfish are a legal bait as they are not a game fish.  Read your regulations for verification.

Jay

[Cornbread]

What Jay said. I also called FWP and got verification before I started using them as bait. The only reason you can't use perch anymore is now perch are classified as game fish. Like Jay said they must be dead to use them(sunfish, suckers, squawfish etc.).

[Ice Junkie_]

Very valuable input , Thank you guys! Cornbread I will be pm ing you for contact info I would like to try and get on to a pike this year if at all possible!

[Quantoson]

This is the sunfish family.  http://www.crappie101.com/crappie/crappie-species-simple-description
So if that is true then only non-edible portions of the sunfish, white & black crappie, can be used as bait.

Am I reading this correctly?


Regs say
Page 19 Game Fish
GAME FISH
All species of the family Salmonidae (trout, salmon, grayling, whitefish, cisco and chars); all
species of the genus Sander (sauger and walleye); all species of the genus Esox (northern
pike and tiger muskellunge); all species of the genus Micropterus (bass); all species of the
genus Polyodon (paddlefish); all species of the family Acipenseridae (sturgeon); the genus
Lota (burbot or ling); the species Perca flavescens  (Yellow perch); all species of the genus
Pomoxis (crappie); and the species Ictalurus punctatus (channel catfish).
• Bull trout are defined as any trout with white leading margins on the lower fins and no
markings on the dorsal fin. (Note: it is unlawful to intentionally fish for bull trout in any
waters unless specifically authorized in the W estern Fishing District Regulations.)
• Sauger are defined as any Sander (sauger/walleye) with multiple small, distinct black
spots on the spiny (first) dorsal fin ray membranes.

[Cornbread]

This is the sunfish family.  http://www.crappie101.com/crappie/crappie-species-simple-description
So if that is true then only non-edible portions of the sunfish, white & black crappie, can be used as bait.

Am I reading this correctly?


Regs say
Page 19 Game Fish
GAME FISH
All species of the family Salmonidae (trout, salmon, grayling, whitefish, cisco and chars); all
species of the genus Sander (sauger and walleye); all species of the genus Esox (northern
pike and tiger muskellunge); all species of the genus Micropterus (bass); all species of the
genus Polyodon (paddlefish); all species of the family Acipenseridae (sturgeon); the genus
Lota (burbot or ling); the species Perca flavescens  (Yellow perch); all species of the genus
Pomoxis (crappie); and the species Ictalurus punctatus (channel catfish).
• Bull trout are defined as any trout with white leading margins on the lower fins and no
markings on the dorsal fin. (Note: it is unlawful to intentionally fish for bull trout in any
waters unless specifically authorized in the W estern Fishing District Regulations.)
• Sauger are defined as any Sander (sauger/walleye) with multiple small, distinct black
spots on the spiny (first) dorsal fin ray membranes.

No, sunfish are of genus Lepomis and are not game fish.

[spearmaster]

I've caught pike on anything from fat heads to suckers to rubber bait tipped with liver. I've read articles that say pike are not to weary on presentation so I just use a 9" steel leader with a 2/0 treble hook and I do just fine.

[Nerka]

Again, many thanks for the valuable info from everyone.  I'm gonna have a bunch more tricks to try.

I just smoked my first batch of G-town Lake bows and kokes in my new smoker, and I'm really liking what happened in that thing.  Eating that delicious stuff sure does make a guy amped-up to go get some more.  We are all pretty lucky to have access to such a variety of critters to harvest and consume in this great state of ours. 

Also, Cornbread is correct on the "sunfish as bait" question.  As Cornbread stated, Redear Sunfish are in the genus: Lepomis; and as Quantoson stated, Crappie are in the genus Pomoxis. The MTFWP regs refer to the genus as the distinction in this case.  However Both genera do fall under the same taxonomic Family: Centrarchidae.  This all relates back to scientific, taxonomic, or binomial classification.

The Scientific classification hierarchy for Redear Sunfish goes:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Centrarchidae
Genus: Lepomis
Species: L. microlophus

The equivilant for Crappie is:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Perciformes
Family: Centrarchidae
Genus: Pomoxis
Species:
P. annularis – white crappie
P. nigromaculatus – black crappie 

just sayin'