Tip-up, I really don't think the way it's done here would work for you in the south. We're dealing with totally different water systems and conditions. Kesagami lake has more walleye than anything, and so that's what becomes pike bait. Walleye would not be the predominant food source for pike in the valley.
That said, the way it worked for us up here was, we jigged eyes in the middle of a channel between two opposing points. We were jigging in about 18 inches of water. For the pike we set up tip-ups, or in my case a tip-down, 50m towards the shore, and we spread them out about 40m apart. We were fishing about 12-14 inches of water would be my guess. On heavy braid or dacron with steel leaders we used big silver spoons like a wabler or whitefish. All hooks were tipped with fallfish or whitefish. Basically I would drop the lure to bottom then reel/sit it up to the point where I thought the spoon was sitting vertical with the hook just off bottom. I predict the light through the hole would help the lure flash, and the bait do the rest.
FF and FFF did well on their tip-ups. 3 of 9 pike were caught on these. 2 pike were caught while jigging further away for walleye, but the PIKE-SLAYERINATOR
, my homemade tip down accounted for the other 4. Proving that it is the most effective device for pike. Ask Martin or Kev and I am sure they will agree. 
What makes it great is, the pike has about a foot of nearly resistance free line to take, then, as it starts to swim away after mowing down, it gets hit by a relatively heavy drag that sets the hook.For the walleye we all used small spoons like Champs, Buckshots, Pixies and Cleos. Everything worked well, but tipping with a live or dead minnow made things even better.
