slow year for pike?

[lowaccord66]

I personally will not use floro or mono for leaders pike fishing.  My buddy fishes 80 floro and has gotten chopped.  I think waiting all that tine for a flag only to be chopped sucks therefore I stick with nylon coated steal leaders.  50# is too light IMO.

[moose444]

Thanks for the update Iowa...Again watching and learning so all info appreciated..

[lowaccord66]

Thanks for the update Lowaccord..Again watching and learning so all info appreciated..

Google In fisherman and Ice Fishing Pike and you'll find a ton of useful info. 

[x182dan]

Theres always two ways to look at it.  I use 50lb fluorocarbon on my line.  Now I have never had a break off but I do change the leader if I feel any imperfections at all.  There may come a time that I get a cut line but it hasn't happened yet.  I am on my second year using the leaders.  I feel that I have gotten more bites with the fluoro than I did with steel leaders, except this year because its slow for me.  I have also started using larger bait and that definitely slowed the bite down for me.  However my average size pike has gone up in size but have gotten much less flags.  So you need to decide if you want more flags or bigger fish.  Right now I am trying to get a monster so I am using mainly huge suckers/goldies.

[westfish]

at the risk of asking a silly question, when fishing for pike in shallow water - like 1-2 ft.  - do you wrap your leader around the spool?  I have a polar tip up set up for pike and I put it in a shallow hole and was concerned with the snap swivel that connects the braided line to the leader being wrapped around the spool because when it's pulled out is has to go through that round guide circle?  i stopped using that tip up in shallow water.

[jammer icecube]

Westfish dont run anything that could get jammed up when the fish runs, so maybe set up a shallow water leader. Ive been back and forth with flouro and steal and the metal is what ive been useing ( 40+++ inch with teeth why take the chance). Im not a snap swivel fan but if you dont make your own leaders SPRO makes nice ones in different lengths.

[lowaccord66]

I sometimes have the steal leader wrapped around the spool in shallow water.  My take is this if largemouth have no issue sucking down a golden on steal neither should a pike.  Saw a nice 20.5 caught yesterday.  I was lucky enough to get a 11 pounder in between my morning and afternoon sessions.  It ate a meduim shiner!  The 20.5 also ate a medium shiner!

[icetilt]

It ate a meduim shiner!  The 20.5 also ate a medium shiner!

Funny you say that. I don't fish for pike that often but I had a couple of buddies that fished quaddick all the time and I used to join them. I was usually targeting calico and perch and would set out a tip or two for pike and wouldn't you know it every time I would have a pike on, it would be on the tip up that I had set in the deepest water I could find on a small shiner. The biggest one I got to the hole was probably in the 5 - 6lb range. Once I got him to the hole and he realized he was hooked he would end up running and cut me off. The only reason I got them that far was because I use circle hooks and they were hooked at the corner of the mouth. Lol. The funniest thing was one day I landed more than my buddies targeting pike. Granted they weren't that big but I had action all day and they had 1 or 2 flags tops.

[Global Warming in CT]

I got my biggest (15.5 lbs) on a medium shiner last year. I was pissed that day because the bait shop I went to didn't have any decent sized pike bait! It just goes to show that as long as you have bait in the water, there's a chance...

[lowaccord66]

Saturday I had a client withe at a tipup, same lake.  Spool screaming, I set the hook and immediately knew it was a pike.  Hand the tip up line to the client, who shortly after was chopped! 

70 hours spent at this lake last year with a mostly dead bait and the only pike I got was on a baitshop shiner.