1. Where to Cut Your Ice Fishing Hole
Determine the type of fish you'd like to catch and where they congregate during the winter months before you cut your ice fishing hole. Good places to ice fish include stepped dropoffs around islands, saddles, underwater humps and shoals. Be prepared to cut many holes, but don't waste your time in a location where there's no interest from the fish. According to some fishing experts, anything more than an hour is an indication that there's probably no fish and you should go to a different area and cut a completely new set of holes. However, if you've found a location where there's action, then stay put. Good locations continue to produce fish for years.
2. Determining the Size of Your Hole
The size of the hole you cut for ice fishing depends on the type of fish you want to catch. Most ice fishers looking to catch panfish and walleye can get away with cutting a 4.5- to 6-inch hole. Fishers looking to catch game fish, like Lake Trout or Pike, will want to cut an 8-inch hole.
3. Spuds for Early Season Chopping
Early in the fishing season, the ice is typically thinner. During this period, you'll want to chop holes with an ice chisel, called a spud. It doesn't require too much effort to cut ice with spuds with these hefty little poles. Just make sure you secure the spud with a line tied to your arm. You don't want it to slip from your grasp and fall to the bottom of a lake while you're chopping away. Later in the season, the ice gets thicker and becomes impossible to cut without an auger.
4. Choosing Your Ice Auger
Be prepared to drill 20 to 30 holes in the ice over the course of a day. You can do this task by using a manual hand auger or you can use a gas auger. Using a hand auger requires a fairly good fitness level since a great deal of effort is put into drilling a hole. Keep in mind, you'll need to drill through 12- to 16- inches of ice. However, manual augers are cheaper and they have fewer parts to break down. Plus they're also very light to carry around. A gas-powered one lets you cut a hole in mere seconds, regardless of the thickness of the ice. They can also cut bigger holes. On the downside, gas augers tend to be more expensive to buy and also require the cost of gas to run. They're also heavier to carry.
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