Published on February 17th, 2018 | by The Iceman

Review of the Strike Master Bait Puck

Quality

Utility

Value

Summary: This is a high quality product that sells at a very reasonable rate. There is no better bait storage available for ice fishing today.

4.7

Unlike some forms of fishing practiced in open water such as fly fishing and tournament-style bass fishing, most ice fishing involves at least some use of bait. The astute reader will notice that I say bait and not live bait. That is by design. While live bait is often used other non-living forms of bait such as Powerbait Trout Bait, minnow heads and even preserved wax worms are also used with some frequency.

When it comes to rigging a tip up most people will attach a live minnow to the hook. The paste style Powerbait trout bait is also fished on its own for hatchery trout. Most other times on the ice bait is usually used to tip the hooks on lures such as ice fishing jigs or ice fishing spoons to give them a bit of smell and taste that can help draw in fish and entice bites.

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How to hold live bait

Since bait is so commonly used, it only follows that people who ice fish would devise various ways to hold their bait. For minnows there are various types of minnow buckets and containers. When it comes to common live bait like maggots and wax worms however, there are surprisingly few options. In fact, there weren’t really many commercial options at all before the Strike Master Bait Pucks came along. Before this product came on the market people usually used empty chewing tobacco containers or just kept the bait in the containers it came in, risking all too common spills of dozen of maggots and other crawling creatures.

Strike Master bait puck maggots

Strike Master is probably best known for their open water lures, but they do have quite a few products made for ice fishing. The most obvious is the Strike Master Honda-Lite Power Auger, though apparently Strike Master doesn’t think that auger is all that obvious since they go as far as advertising it on the lids of their bait pucks.

The best bait container ever

The Strike Master bait puck is probably the best small live bait container ever made. At the very least it is the best bait container for ice fishing on the market. That is not only because it is one of the only bait containers on the market. It is because this thing is really good.

As the name would suggest, the bait puck looks like a hockey puck. The puck comes in both yellow and red colors and is made of a high quality but light weight plastic. The inside of the puck is obviously hollowed out so that bait can be stored inside.

Although the pucks are only about the size of a chewing tobacco container they can hold a lot of bait. To put things in perspective, I usually keep two or three dozen maggots in one container and a few dozen wax worms in another. Those are my two favorite and most used types of live bait. Since the bait puck is most commonly sold in packs of two, it all works out perfectly.

The most useful aspects of the bait pucks are that it keeps bait from getting crushed, it keeps bait from spilling out, and it keeps bait alive by protecting it to some extent from both the cold and the heat in places like the inside of a car.

That would be enough reason to have a bait puck or two at all times on the ice, but Strike Master didn’t stop there. They really put some time and effort into the design and production of this product. You can tell just by holding the bait puck. The overall product is smooth so that it can easily slide in and out of pockets. At the same time there are small dimples around the lid that allow you to grip the lid. That really comes in handy when you need to open or close the bait puck with a single hand, which I actually find myself doing quite often.

I doubt Strike Master could get away with charging all too much for what are basically small plastic cups with screw tops but some companies would probably try at on. Thankfully, Strike Master is not one of them. They sell their bait pucks at really reasonable rates. The biggest issue when buying bait pucks it trying to find them. They often sell out because everyone who knows about ice fishing knows how useful the bait pucks are. They are more than worth the price of purchase.

The Strike Master Bait Puck is available at Amazon and Angler’s Emporium.

Tags: ice fishing apparel