Best fishing tackle for Ice Pike By Gary Fultz

Brass flutter spoon

    It cannot get any less complicated than a stick with some fishing line, leader, and a spoon hook. It's all you need to catch northern pike through the ice. My brother and I have pulled out over 200 fish through the ice this winter alone, fishing mostly weekends.

    Is there some skill involved? yes. Does it help to put bait on the trebles of the spoon? sometimes. Are they always biting? What kind of a question is that? Let me put it this way; We usually out-fish the tip-ups with live bait and the dark houses with spears. In short, this is the deadliest ice fishing method I know of to get the most northern pike through the ice. 

    How about some testimonials of fishing this method. 

Hammered silver spoon

Magic spoon (Red white silver)

Magic spoon

Red and White spoon

    Sometimes we tip a treble hook with a minnow head or tail. A piece of pork rind works as long as the hooks are not cluttered with bait to impede  the action which drives the Pike crazy.

    Small quick jerks with make the spoon spin up and tip over sideways and then flutter down. The fluttering down seems to be a triggering mechanism that makes a curious pike hit. Most of our fishing is in four to six feet of water under the ice offering a good view of the fish coming in when the lake is clear. Sometimes the pike will drift in and out and watch the hook and finally swim away; come back a little while later and slam it at 90 mph. Other times they are wild and miss the hook several times before getting serious. It's fun to watch even if all you have is an eight inch auger hole. Get in a shelter or chair with a covering and watch the action.

    A couple more things to remember; make sure the ice is safe to walk or drive on, dress warm, make the kids wear boots and not tennis shoes (I don't know why they think they can stay warm this way), and bring a sled or bucket for all the fish. 

    Just remember the fishn is always good, sometimes the catching is as well!

                                    one last testimonial

caught on the pretty hook

Bronze flutter spoons

     They each caught fish that day. Now to fillet a Pike boneless...We will talk about that another time

Gary D

    For more information on the spoon hook click here