[saxmatt]

For suckers try this: 4" light floro leader with a small hook and half a trout worm, tie to a barrel swivel and use an egg sinker with bread or pizza dough wrapped around the sinker. Let it sit still on the bottom and put the rod in a rod holder. Try at the upstream side of large pools or below dams.

As far as rigging the bait I don't like quick strike rigs for pike and muskie through the ice. In the amount of time it takes you to get to the tipup they can easily swallow one of the trebles, I've seen it happen. Also trebles are much more difficult to unhook and when it's below freezing time is of the essence so their eyeballs and gills don't freeze. Also muskie tend to look at the bait very carefully before they strike through the ice and they'll see the trebles in these clear pressured Jersey lakes. I like a single 5/0 octopus hook through the dorsal and I almost never gut hook fish. Every once in a while I do but it's easy to get the hook out if you carefully go through the gill plate, pull the line back exposing the bend of the hook, and pop the hook out with a pair of long pliers through the mouth.