How to Rig an Ice Fishing Tip-Up

Instructions

How to Rig an Ice Fishing Tip-Up

1

Put enough line onto the reel of the tip-up so that any fish that takes the bait cannot "spool" your tip-up. When a fish spools a tip-up it takes all the line off of the reel and often snaps the line from the reel and escapes. Tie your line to the reel and wind enough of it around so that you have at least 30 yards of it on the reel. Use braided line that is at least 20 pound test.

2




Tie a swivel to the end of the line using a clinch knot. Send the line through the hook's eye and then double back with the line and make a total of five turns with the line around the line going into the eyes of the hook. Now put the end of your line through the first loop you made of the five above the eye of the hook and then pass it through the bigger loop that this creates. Pull the line tight and you have a clinch knot. Make sure that you slide the now tight five coils down the line aginst the eye of the hook. Once a swivel is on your line it can opened up and hooks or leaders can be attached. A swivel gives you the luxury of not having to cut the line continually as you switch set-ups.

3

Attach a leader to the swivel with the same type of clinch knot. The leader can be a piece of mono-filament line about three feet long. Utilize a higher test line, about 25 pounds, for fish like pike and a lighter test, about ten pound test, for species such as bass, walleyes, pickerel, and crappies.

4

Secure a treble hook to the leader, once again employing the clinch knot. Using a treble hook increases your chances greatly of hooking the fish. Determine the size of your hook by how large the bait you will be attaching to it is.

5

Place a split shot above the treble hook. Attach the weight about six inches above the hook to keep the bait down. Live shiners will tend to try to swim up towards the hole unless there is enough weight to keep them down. Larger shiners may require two split shots to keep them in the bite zone below the ice.

6

Fix your bait to the hook. Hook a shiner either in the lip or through the back to the rear of its dorsal fin. The tip-up is now rigged and ready to be deployed above the hole in the ice.