Click here for Tips and Tricks (part 2).
Click here for Tips and Tricks (part 1).
In a previous blog, I described the basic equipment required to catch fish through the ice. This blog is the third of three installments about tips and tricks to enhance your ice fishing experiences.
Hand warmers: Hands quickly get cold because we have to expose them to grab and attach baitfish to the hook, or to unhook a fish. A good way to manage this problem is to use disposable Hothands hand warmers. Make sure to get the hand warmers instead of the Hothand foot warmers since the latter are smaller in order to fit properly inside boots. I open two hand warmer packs when entering my truck in the morning and shake the contents to start the air-activated reaction. Those warmers are piping hot when I reach my destination and will release heat for many more hours. I leave the warmers in my jacket pockets so I can curl my cold fingers around them, or place them directly inside my mittens. Shake the contents to reactivate the chemical process if the heat output diminishes during the day. Also, avoid getting the hand warmers wet as that will slow down heat generation.
Gloves: I use two pairs of gloves when ice fishing. The inner pair consist of thin fingerless gloves that leave my fingers uncovered and available to handle baitfish or grab a snack without exposing my entire hands. The outer pair consists of thick oversized mittens that I can quickly shake off to attend a flag. Those mittens also provide plenty of space to accommodate the hand warmers mentioned above.
Soup: I bring a thermos of hot soup to keep me warm on the ice. My thermos of choice, which has worked unfailingly for 30 years, is the wide-mouth Aladdin Stanley. I stay away from chunky soups (e.g., chicken noodle, chunky beef with vegetables) and only bring creamed soups (e.g., cream of chicken, cream of mushroom, cream of celery). The reason? Chunky soup is … chunky! When you poor this kind of soup into a cup, the hot liquid on top comes out first. Then, when you return for a second serving, only the chunky stuff on the bottom comes out and gets cold quickly. It is a small detail, but I find that creamed soups provide a smoother consistency, stay warmer longer, and just work better for me.
Food: It is essential to stay fueled when ice fishing. How do you prevent your food from freezing? The solution is to bring high-calorie dry foods that cannot freeze, such as flavored pretzels, nuts, trail mix, chips, cheesy crackers, cookies, energy bars and the like. “Wet” food such as sandwiches or donuts only work on warmer days when the temperature stays above freezing.
Jigging: Jigging is the opposite of trap fishing. The latter is largely “static” since traps stay in one location for a long time, whereas the former is more “active” because the angler constantly moves – or should move – between holes looking for fish. This technique requires a short jigging stick, a spinning reel spooled with regular monofilament line, and a jigging lure (e.g., a 1 to 2-inch Swedish Pimple, a 1.5-inch Rapala Jigging Rap, etc. Note: keep the lure small for trout). The idea is to lower the lure through the hole, bring it down to a certain depth depending on the target species, and then twitch the rod tip to give life to the lure below. I also provide scent to the lure by adding a small piece of baitfish (e.g., head, tail) to one of the hooks or pinch a salmon egg. I spend no more than 5 to 10 minutes at one hole, and move to the next one if nothing happens. I will drill from 10 to 20 jigging holes during a typical ice-fishing trip and rotate through all of them. This technique represents a lot of effort but can easily turn a slow day into a spectacular one!
Move traps: It is easy to become lazy when ice fishing, particularly when angling from within an ice shanty. That is the main reason I no longer own one… The angler drills five holes, deploys the tip-ups, sits down to relax, and passively waits for the flags to pop. I have learned to remain flexible. It is common for one hole to generate multiple flags. If so, I drill new holes around this “honey hole” and move inactive traps to these new locations. This trick can be particularly effective when fishing for schooling fish, such as bass, white perch, yellow perch, or stocked brook trout. There is a reason that honey hole is so active! I set up a tip-up pattern when I arrive but then change it over time by drilling new holes in response to flag or jigging activity, or lack thereof. Moving traps is work but increases the odds of catching more fish.
Line management: Some fish will unspool several dozen feet of braided line from the spool before you have the chance to set the hook. That line must now be retrieved hand-over-hand through the hole in order to bring in the fish. Careless line management causes knots and twists that are a pain to address with frozen fingers. It is good practice to avoid piling the line on top of itself and instead spread it in large loops around the hole. That approach will make the re-spooling process quicker while minimizing the chances of tangled line.
I hope that these suggestions are helpful and will enhance everyone’s ice fishing experiences. Tight lines and may many big fish bite!
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