Ice Fishing BS Thread

Yup.

hammering some pike weekend.

 

Ice season is pretty much here. Lakes are freezing up, stores all have ice gear out.
So what did everyone get new for this year?

I got ---
clam x400 hub house
eskimo rod bag
clam predator tip up rod holder thing
garmin striker 7sv to replace my striker 4 (no new features, just a bigger screen)
acme jack knife jigs. Small hook attached to a big hook with a hinge at the jig head. You tail hook the minnow on the small hook and it can flop around more with the hinge on the hook.
buddy flex heater for the new x400 hub house

 

I didn't do much for new gear just some new rods and tackle. Picked a couple daiwa combos a 28ML and 34M.
Is been a struggle bus of a year for ice so far been ok for small stocked trout ponds but on the bigger reservoirs your still lucky to find maybe 5" in some back bays.

 

My heart says load up the gear & head on out but my head knows better. Ice conditions here are pretty dismal. Not enough cold weather for my liking. Hopefully after the New Year.

 

Some days you just gotta send it and see what you find. Iv had 4 days this week with lakes to myself because no one will look for ice. As long as there's 3" it's good enough for me. Said no woman ever.....

 

Got out to the mountains to chase some bull trout. Not much beats them.

 

Welp, we still dont have ice here in central MN.... But its getting there. Hoping to get out next weekend.

I loaded up my gear to see how it all fit in my sled (I got a new hub house and heater this year). Turns out the new hub takes up my entire sled with no room for anything else. So I did what any adult thats bad with money would do... I got a new sled!

Otter pro magnum, 75 inches of ice fishing sled. Fits all my gear with space left over. Though it does not fit in the bed of the tacoma... I have to angle it up to shut the tailgate.

 

Those are a monster of a sled. I have the shapell XL that I shove an eskimo 949, big buddy heater, helix 7, helix 5, aquavu hd7, 2 eskimo 42" rod bags, 2 chairs with other odds n ends.

 

For sure, damn thing is nearly the size of the bed of the truck.... 75" L x 38" W x 15" H is the dimensions on it. My kids first question was "can we use it to sled down the hill?" They can fit all 4 of them in there without problem.

 

I have seen those used as boats on stocked trout ponds. No joke

 

Alright, tomorrow is the day! Trout opener got cancelled due to lack of ice (city closed the lake so they dont have to sit out there with a boat pulling people out of the water). But I checked another lake I like to fish today, solid 4 inches of clear ice. Lake I am going to be hitting is the one I normally go to in the summer time, so I know the layout pretty well. Should be a very very cold day, so I will be bringing my flip over shack, its a smaller space to heat than the hub house.

Plan is to go for crappie, bluegill and pike (maybe a tiger musky if it hits my pike tip up)

 

How do you rig your pike tip ups? I changed my set up a few years ago and it has been flawless for keeping trebles out of the hand and keeping them not hook the bottom of the hole

 

I have a weight on the line, bead, then a snap swivel, then under that I just put a quick strike rig for big minnows. I dont setup my tip ups 99% of the time as I like to dead stick and jig in the shack.

But tomorrow with how cold its going to be I will have my heater infront of me so no room in my little 1 man flip over for 2 rods.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w166-ljnIMU

 

Well, I didnt catch shit. There was one other guy on the lake, he had livescope. I talked with him a bit and he said he has been walking all over and has not found a single fish anywhere.

 

Decided I need to get off my ass and get one of my diesel heaters installed in my flip over. Its a little 2kw unit, but its twice as powerful as the propane heater I was using for the past few years.
The dry heat and lack of deadly CO are the main advantages using this heater over propane, but a nice advantage I will have is that I can turn on the heater when I get to the lake, it will pump heat into the sled under the cover and "pre-heat" the tent. I can leave the heater running while I move holes, so when I find a new spot I can just flip the tent back over and the heat is already going.

 

Went out for another day of pike and walleye. Lots of small ones. Atleast the ice is thick enough to drive onto now.

 

Lucky, ice around me is thick enough to walk, but you got to get past the sketchy ice around the shores. I gave up on this year, put all my big stuff back into storage. I will keep my single person shack and normal gear handy if we happen to get a good cold snap to firm up the shores, but im focusing on getting my boat ready for May when opener happens.

 

It's been so up and down here we went from -40 to +15 over 2 days now we're hovering -3