Ice-fishing Friday: Your complete guide to catching big northern pike with tip-ups

SETTING THE HOOK

After the tip-ups are set, it’s time to sit back and visit with your fishing buddies as you watch for flags to pop up. And once one does pop, the real fun begins. Quickly make your way to the tip-up, but resist the urge to set the hook right away. Instead, watch the line spool and monitor how the line is going out. Often, pike will grab the bait, swim off for several metres, stop to readjust the bait in their mouth, then make a second run as they start to swallow the bait. I like to set the hook once that second run begins.

If you’re fishing with circle hooks, it’s essential to use a slow and steady retrieve to set the hook, which ensures it catches and embeds in the pike’s lip. That technique is the opposite of the quick, hard hookset you need to drive home a treble or J-hook, which could lodge anywhere in the fish’s mouth. If you try to set a circle hook by yanking it, in fact, you’ll only pull the hook right out of the fish’s mouth.

Over the years, I’ve learned that pike often head towards deeper water as they take off with a bait. To increase my odds of a solid hookset, I turn my back towards shallower water, then set the hook. This seems to pull the hook back into the fish’s mouth, as opposed to out of it. If you’re using a hand-over-hand retrieval method, make sure you’re also facing the wind. That lets the retrieved line blow away from your body and fall on the ice behind you, preventing it from getting tangled with the line in your hand—and helping ensure you put another toothy critter on the ice.