A Few Ice Fishing Tips

Ice fishing is a popular activity in the United States and Canada during the winter season. If you are not easily discouraged by the cold weather, this could be a great sport for you. But first things first, you need to have the right gears for it.

One of the most important things you need to have for this activity is an auger and an ice skimmer. An auger is basically a large drill that can bore a hole on an icy surface. These come in two types – manual and power augers. With manual augers, you turn the equipment manually and these are okay for shallow ice. But for ice that is three feet deep, you’ll need to use the power auger. The ice skimmer on the other hand is an equipment that resembles a small colander but with a long handle. This is used to scoop out the ice as you are boring a hole with the use of your auger.

Just like with other types of fishing methods, you’ll need the use of a fishing rod – an ice fishing rod. These are different from regular fishing rods in a way that they are lightweight and measure about less than 30 inches in length. These are considerably cheaper compared to regular fishing rods probably because less material is used to make them. Fish are slow during the winter which could make it difficult to detect if you’ve already caught one. To help solve this problem, choose an ice fishing rod that is sensitive to help you easily detect even the smallest movements.

If you want to go ice fishing but are not too excited about braving the cold weather, an ice shelter, also called a shanty, could protect your from wind gusts. These are like tents that have a rigid support structure. They come in varied shapes and sizes. Ice shelters have an open bottom so that you can drill a hole on the ice.

As you can see, you only need several gears if you wanted to try ice fishing.