Just getting into ice fishing for pike. just wonderin if you guys have and tips/lures that work good.
                           -Thanks!

Pike will hit anything that appears to be floundering in the water. The usual red daredevils always work! Swedish pimples, salmo darters, vertical rapala's will all work, but the key is to keep them moving. If you can keep your presentation constantly moving up and then free-falling downward you will be offering your best chance at getting a pike to hit. Good luck!

i've done good with little cleo's tipped with small minnow or half a minnow.

In general Pikes will patrol the shallow water during low light periods and then move into deeper water as the day progresses.  I've also once caught a Pike dow 35 feet in 45 FOW at 3 AM in the middle of the night.

Posted By slipperybob on 22 Jul 2010 06:40 PM
In general Pikes will patrol the shallow water during low light periods and then move into deeper water as the day progresses.  I've also once caught a Pike dow 35 feet in 45 FOW at 3 AM in the middle of the night.

yep pike can be found anywhere at anytime during the winter. i've seen them just under the ice in 100fow. i've caught them on the bottom in 70fow and in 3fow when ya thought that there would be enough water under the ice for them to move around. so what you have to do is find were/what they are feeding on and fish were that is.

I think that whole idea of an aggressive approach to pike in winter is garbage just set a smelt or something greasy rigged with a treble through the belly out there and let it sit... you wont find anything that catches more pike. Think big for pike in winter they wont be able to refuse an easy meal that will fill them up for days. Depending on the lake we will set a line right along weed edges in six feet of water or else make kind of a trap line over a rock pile or sand flats but always only a few feet under the ice.
thats pretty much the only way anyone targets pike up in north sask anyway.

When you're sitting there and jigging around with a lure set at 10 feet below the ice dancing in 30 feet of water. You've been catching crappies here and there. Then you see a faint fish signal at around 25 feet slowly approaching. It rises to about 24 feet, pauses, and hovers for a bit. The signal rises up to 23 feet, pauses, and hovers for another second. The signal dissappears. You'd think it was just a small passing fish. You see a flash at 20 feet. Another flash at 15 feet. Then suddenly a hard tug on your line. Your reel squeals as the drag zips and line peels out for about 10 yards. Your adrenaline starts pumping, getting ready to do battle. Then ever thing goes slack. You've only got 4# test on and didn't even get a chance to fight the fish.

Jigging for pike. There's nothing quite like it.

Posted By slipperybob on 22 Jul 2010 06:40 PM
In general Pikes will patrol the shallow water during low light periods and then move into deeper water as the day progresses.  I've also once caught a Pike dow 35 feet in 45 FOW at 3 AM in the middle of the night.

The story that went with this was a crappie exploration trip to a new lake I planned on.  I had did some lake contour study and decided to try the typical deep holes of the lake out first.  It was a wonderful moonlit night and I was the only one out there.  So I went to one deep hole of about 45+ feet of water.  Scouting the area with about a dozen holes.  Got to one hole and saw a mark down about 37 feet.  Perfect example of a larger lone crappie.  Drop my jig down there with 3# Pline Floroice line.  Got to about down 35 feet and the fish started to respond.  It rised to the jigging action.  After a few more pumps and the fish committed to the bite.  At first it felt like a trophy crappie, then it started to make it's long run.  Very typical of a northern pike and I knew it wasn't a crappie.  With 3# test line, I really didn't stand much of a chance, but my light drag was doing it's job of preventing line break.  Being that the fish had a fair decent room to move about and there was no danger of any close shoreline structure, I was okay to do battle with this fish.  I'm not sure how much time had passed by, maybe about 10 minutes and I was winning the tug of war.  I worked the fish up the hole and it yeild a nice healthy Northern Pike.  I've forgotten how big or how long this pike was now, but it was an average size of somewhere between 24-28 inches.  I'm sure if it was any bigger, I would've either lost it in a line break or would've end up taking a lot more time.

I normally don't catch them in the middle of the night, but this one was an exception.

it's not the norm......but it does happen and i have taken my share at nite too.

when i lived in mi. i lived on a lake with smelt. did a lot of nite fishing for the smelt. i learned early on in my ice fishing to set a tip-up near ya with a smelt on it --set it about the same depth that you are catching smelt -- not every nite but a couple nites out of the year we would get a few pike. pike was not the only fish we got on the tip-ups either, there are trout in this lake too.

PIKE ARE ONE OF MY TARGET FISH ON HARD WATER. I WILL SET A TIP-UP WITH A PERCH IN ABOUT 6-10 FEET OF WATER ABOUT HALF WAY DOWN. THEN I WILL MOVE AWAY AND JIG A SMALL DEAD MINNOW AS WELL. OR KICK BACK CATCHING PAN FISH AND WAIT FOR THE BIG BOY. ONE IMPORTANT KEY IN VERY SHALLOW WATER IS TOO PRE-DRILL SOME HOLES BEFORE THE SUN COMES UP AND STAY AWAY FROM YOUR TIP-UP. IN OLY SIX FEET OF WATER PIKE CAN HEAR AND FEEL THE MOVEMENT ON THE ICE ABOVE.

Pikes like to inspect open holes in the ice too. I have a theory that drilling a few holes about the proximity of the tip up will increase the odds of a pike taking the bait.

Use golden shiners. They work good in Michigan. Also keep your hole from foot traffic and you will have betttter luckm catching pikr