How to beat skittish rianbows??

[triple threat]

Hey guys, I do alot of rainbow fishing through the ice and i've been doing really well everywhere that i've fished with the exception of one lake(lake winnipesaukee in NH).  It seems as though the rainbows in this lake are alot more skittish than in the other lakes.  We get alot of dropped flags which leads me to believe that they're feeling some resistance in the trap, alot of them drop it right after the flag goes off.  We've tried some different techniques without much luck, and I just recently started fine tuning my traps to get them to release with as little effort as possible altough I haven't gotten back out on the ice since to try them out.  We run 10-15ft of 4lb flouro leader with with size 14 light wire hooks on all of our traps and were getting flags but they're just not holding on to it.  Do any of you guys have any suggestions that will helps us get more hookups?  Thanks a bunch  

[iceintheveins]

I suggest fishing deeper and sizing down. I would use very small jigs like shrimpos, nuclear ants, and ratsos tipped with a single waxworm or a very small sliver of nightcrawler on 4 pound test fluorocarbon. Fish at least 12 feet deep instead of really shallow.

[adipose]

my tipups may be a bit different than yours but this should not make any difference.spooky trout or not.......i just unspool perhaps 5 to 10 ft of line and lay it on the ice so that the trout will not feel any resistance at all untill its to late and down into the throat.you will know when this happens as the hook will no longer be lipped.OR........i have a plastic clothes pin attatched to my tipups.i spool the line and then clip the line LIGHTLY under the clothes pin.works good for me.smart rainbows is what led me to this approach.

[triple threat]

Thanks guys, those are some great ideas I will give them a try.

[PGKris]

Maybe try going to a bigger hook? Size 14 seems awfully small for a decent sized rainbow. I would try a #10 octopus......we don't use tip-ups here but man, size 14 seems way small for rainbows.

[Jim111]

One thing we've found that works sometimes for fish like rainbows, that run fast, then drop the bait, is to rig the tip-up so the fish will hook itself before it drops the bait, on it's initial run. You can accomplish this by going down the spool a short ways, then winding a short length of the line onto the reel backwards. The fish will come to an abrupt halt when it reaches that point on the spool and often hook itself. I use a one-inch long piece of worm or nightcrawler on tip-ups set very close together here, and no more than 5-8 feet down, when fishing rainbows, by the way. Have great luck fishing fairly shallow and often, our best luck comes when fishing out from public beaches with sandy bottom.   -Jim