I am trying to balance the whole packing thing, getting the trailer, truck and quad ready to roll, and still finding some time to make a few posts this week. Making my lists and checking them twice, thrice. Its snowing outside right now, torn between going out and drilling holes in the ice, or calling the girlfriend up to come over, throw her in the snow and start making snow angels. Since I think she’s working, drilling sounds like the logical thing to do, but the ice isn’t thick enough locally, this is it for the day.
There is just something about fishing with tip-ups that gets the heart racing and blood pumping. You set the tip up, you go and get others ready or you start jigging in another location. The flag goes up, and you can’t help but run over there. Then pull the tip-up out of the hole and grab the line. Feel the weight on the line and you feel the fish on the other end. You give a little, while she takes a run. Then give just a short jerk for a hookset, before the fish spits out the bait.
Once hooked, start pulling the line in. This is the anticipation part, what is it, how big will it be, just all kinds of questions running through your mind. Then you see the head, and the critical part of the whole process is getting it started up the hole without snagging on the edges. Once you have it in the hole, two things will happen. Either it will twist and turn and try to go back down, or the tail will start into overdrive and the fish will come shooting out the hole and onto the ice.
Before I take off for Minnesota, I will get in a few posts on types of tip ups and how to rig them for pike and walleye.