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Transplant Ice Angler Swears By "Tip-Downs"

February 06, 2008 - Some ice anglers call them "tip-ups." In some northern sections of Maine, you're more likely to hear them called "flags." Still others refer to their essential pieces of ice-fishing gear as "tilts," while the generic term "traps" works just as well.

No matter what you call them, ice-fishing traps come in all kinds of shapes, sizes and colors. Some -- like the gimmicky Fincky's Fish Factory -- are even mechanized, with a motor to jig the bait and a light bulb to keep your hole from icing in.

Harold King is quick to point out that the ice fishing trap he brought to Maine from his native Michigan is not something he invented.

He says avid ice fishermen in his former neck of the woods often use similar devices, which they build and refine ... just as he has.

But King also admits that up in Greenville, where he moved a couple of months ago, his way of ice fishing strikes locals as a bit peculiar.

"A lot of anglers are looking at 'em and asking what they are, for sure," King said. "They've never seen nothing like it."

King, it seems, has turned the ice-fishing world upside-down.

"This is a tip-down," King said, showing off one of his fishing traps. "It's a balanced fishing rod, and when a fish hits it, they take it down, and they can spool line from there. They'll just take line. It's got a drag and everything."

King's tip-downs, which he was using exclusively during last weekend's Moosehead Lake Togue Derby, are a pretty straightforward invention.

A metal pin is inserted in a simple commercial jigging rod. When the angler gets ready to fish, he slips the pin of the rod into a solid base designed to hold it over the hole.

The placement of the pin is crucial, because when the rod rests in that stand, it tilts upward toward the tip. When a fish starts nibbling the bait, the nearly balanced rod (you guessed it) tips down.

"A tip-up, once a fish hits it, it'll set off the flag and if they end up spitting the hook, the tip-up will free-spool and go to the bottom of the lake and there it sits," King said. "These, if he hits it and spits it back out, the tip-downs just pop back up and resets themselves for the fish to turn around and come right back and grab it again."

An angler can easily watch the rod and ascertain what the fish is doing, much like a boat-bound angler can do when he looks at a rod in a rod-holder.

"A fish can sit there and teeter with it and play with it and it's not setting off a flag," King said. "You're not chasing flags all day for nothing. Once the fish takes it, he takes it down, and basically you've got it, then."

King is an avid ice fisherman and has plenty of other kinds of fishing traps. Increasingly, those other traps don't see much use.

"I've got buckets of tip-ups, too, but I don't put them in the water," King said. "These are basically all I use, the tip-downs. They definitely seem to catch a lot more fish."

King has taken a few of his tip-downs to local bait and tackle stores and hopes to sell them to other Greenville anglers looking for an edge.

And he admitted that he thought winning a big cash prize in last weekend's derby would have been a way to garner some free advertising.

"That was kind of the hope today," King said. "Fishing has been kind of tough, today, though."

SOURCE: Bangor Daily News

DATE: 02-02-2008


Lakes: Moosehead Lake
Regions: Moosehead


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