Gear...

[Rockfish9]

I'll start with tip ups ... I' own about 50 give or take... the ones i use the most are home made...made from rock maple, I have two styles, cross arm, which are my standard and two parellel arm deep snow traps i use exclusivly on Lake Winnipisauki when I'm not jigging laker and am fishing for rainbows...

The spools were original 40 ups... I took them appart, and drilled them out to take a 3/8 brass plated lamp pipe... they are bolted together and run on plastic bushings( drinking straws) that ride on a 1/4 -20 bolt, spool tension is adjusted with a self locking nut... they hold 300 yards of line( 250 backing 50 dacron)... it makes them heavy and very smoothe.. they trip easily .. but are adjustable for large bait because of the self locking nut... I originaly made my own triggers.. but keeping them lubed and working in cold weather proved to be problematic, so I bought triggers from jack trap...it mightbe the smartest thing I ever did...

I have fitted all the spools with cork that now comes standard on Heritage laker traps... I started glueing cork to my spools 30 years ago... I used to cut rounds from the rolled gasket material... and glue it with weather strip adhesive.. now you can buy them cut to size with adhesive backing... I could have been rich!...
you will also otice ( when I post picutes of the tip ups) that I tape the bottom... it is a trick I learned as a youngster from an old timer long since departed... what it does is attrack the sun... so they dont freeze in...not even on the coldest day as long as there is sun... even at night or on cloudy days, ice knocks off of the tape alot eaiser than it does painted or bare wood...

why so many spools one might ask... it makes it aot eaiser to target differant species on the same outing... and it sure beats tieing anew leader when you cut off a hoook or have to untngle a mess made by a slime dart that decided to run to the flemish cap!