Reel Setup for Ice Fishing Tip-Ups

Video Transcript

"So let's talk about setting up a reel on a tip up. After you've spun several hundred yards of good nylon or dacron braided line onto your reel, and again, several hundred yards. Because when you get a big northern pike or a lake trout or a salmon that takes a run with one of these, you're not going to get away with just a hundred yards. You'll lose that fish. So a couple hundred yards worth of braided nylon line on it. We're going to set that down and we're going to tie onto the very end of that, we're going to tie on a small barrel swivel. Do that twist we talked about earlier. And take the tag end through the hole, down nearest the swivel, tighten that off like so, then you're going to take your fishing line or your leader, which is going to be about twelve feet long, and you're going to tie that off through the other end of the barrel swivel. Now this is one of those times where you might want to go through a second time. Don't go through that barrel swivel just once. You're going to be fighting some big fish here, so you want to take it through a second time, make a second loop before taking it around three or four times, and then feeding it through both loops. This will give it a little bit of extra strength on the barrel swivel knot right there. And there you have it. Then of course you want to clip off your tag ends because you don't want the fish to see these. As a matter of fact, you're hoping that the fish don't even see the barrel swivel. Then you have this twelve foot long leader and about two feet above the hook, you have one split shot. And that's all that's holding it down there."