I am looking for any information on ice fishing for these beasts. Tip-up setups, bait, jigging?, etc. etc.

I am going to Lake Champlain this weekend to Highgate Springs with a group of friends. We have rented an ice shack that you sleep in. They are supposed to put us in a good area to catch northern pike. I have never fished for northerns but that is what we are going for and none of us have a clue what to do. Any information that anyone could share would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
John

take a look on
www.neoutdoorsman.com Bob the moderator could give you all the know how you need

Here are a couple more sites from Champlain.www.fishingvermont.net and www.pwshift.com/fishingvermont/

Don't forget to post a report, sounds interesting, I'd lile to learn more about it.

John S.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Replying to:

I am looking for any information on ice fishing for these beasts. Tip-up setups, bait, jigging?, etc. etc.

I am going to Lake Champlain this weekend to Highgate Springs with a group of friends. We have rented an ice shack that you sleep in. They are supposed to put us in a good area to catch northern pike. I have never fished for northerns but that is what we are going for and none of us have a clue what to do. Any information that anyone could share would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
John

I will share my limited knowlege as we have done it a couple of time at Champlain. Were in southern part of lake south of Champain Bridge.
I think the best tip I can give is that you need large bait to catch large pike. We started with just some so called large shiners the we use in this area and caught pike but all on small size. We talked to som guys just up the lake from us and saw that they were using bait that was at least 6-7" long. We went and got larger bait and started catching larger pike.
We used treble hooks and steel leaders.
It is a blast.
We even copy catted something else we had seen and that was using regular fishing rod drapped over a bucket with some kind of strike indicator. We used rubber band around handle of rod so that when line came out it could free spool. Have fun!
You might also try the following forum on this site
http://www.geocities.com/cjohn2979/

Used 40 or 50 lb floro, and watch out!! Respect their teeth!

Here are a couple of links that may help.

http://www.iceshanty.com/ice_fishing/index.php?board=39.0

http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/dfwpdf/dfw_tigerpikehistory.pdf

http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/dfwpdf/dfw_tigerfishing.pdf

I fish for Northerns quite a bit on Lake Champlain. I use a 5.0 black hook with a black steel leader usually 12" long on my tip ups. I use large shiners or suckers whichever I can get my hands on. I think that shiners work better but suckers last longer, they are tough, especially overnite. On my tip-ups I use 1/2 live bait and 1/2 dead. I take and slit the belly of the bait and I let the guts hang out. I set the tip-ups usually 12"-18" from the bottom. Hopr this helps....Good Luck!!