Your Ice fishing Gear.

[MartyLee]

Just woundering what others use for all the game fish out there?

For Small game fish:
(Perch, Crappie and Sunfish)

Jigging ROds:
Two 28" Med Action Berkly Ice rods, with Small reels spooled with 6 and 5 pound Floro-carbon line

Two spools of 4 or 6 pound line for still fishing

JIgs/Spoons and Hooks: 1/8oz jigheads and smaller, 1"buckshot spoon, other small spoons, #6 and smaller hooks with BB size sinkers.

Plastics: Gulp Alive small stuff. Powerbait small, 1" twistertails. Live bait.


Med Gamefish:
Walleye, Laketrout. whitefish ect..

Two 30" Med/Heavy Jiging rods spooled with 8 to 12 pound

2 tips-ups. 15 pound test with a Floro-carbon Leader.

Lures: Spoons and jigging raps. #4 Hooks with Livebait.


Big Game:
Pike and Muskie.

Heavy jigging rod, heavey Braided Line (30Lbs ATM)

Tip-up (30lbs)

Large Spoons, Large minnows

#2 or #1 hooks

 

[ALN]

thanks for opening a thread like this! im new to ice fishing and really wanted to try it out this year. Now i know what i should at least look for in gear

Gunna be up by simcoe in search of jumbo perch all the perch i catch are only around 4" so im really excited about this winter

 

[CanadianAngler87]

I fish walleye,pike,and perch. I use 28" Berkley ice rod for all medium action. The only thing I change is the 4 and 6 lbs fluro for Perch. Other than that I just use my 6 or 8lbs siglon. Then I usualy set up a tip up when fishing walleye or pike. And for perch I will double fist two ice rods down seperate holes tipped with jig head and minnow. Pretty simple set ups. Other than jig head and minnow small jigging spoons work well. The rest of ny gear consists of 8" manual ice auger, 4 man pop-up portable hut, ice scoop to clean out your holes, pelican ice fishing sled to haul my gear out,and a catalytic propane heater to heat the hut.

 

[schnip]

be careful with the 2 rods thing--was told thats illegal.

 

[efka]

be careful with the 2 rods thing--was told thats illegal.

only some lakes

 

[schnip]

like the great ones...

 

[MartyLee]

depends on the area on the Great lakes, around Parry Sound Harbour only 1 line can be used but 20 Km south in Woods Bay 2 lines is OK, you have to cheak the regs to be sure. thats why I always keep a regs book with me now.

 

[efka]

there are only few lakes that have restrictions to one line, most lakes are two.

16 and 17 zones are 2 lines anywhere. few lakes that has one line restriction in 15.

 

[CanadianAngler87]

Thanks for the heads up, never fished any zone other then 16-17 Im aware of the regs. Any lake I've fished two rods is fine. When your only able to fish 8" of water at a time its nice to have the second. Either double fisting or a dead line or tip up.

 

[NADO]

Has anyone ever used rapala finesse on the ice? I had a 4lb spool at home lying around and I did my break test on it and it was really strong, equivalent to at least 6 lb or more and its very thin. Was wondering if im crazy to use it for lake trout?

 

[efka]

you might be ok if you have a big hole, but if the hole is small it will get cut while trying to get trout to the hole.

for trout i use 8lb maxima mono 3ft leader and 10-12 lb braid. 32" mh rod

whitefish; 8lb braid with 6lb 2ft fluoro leader. meduim 28"rod

 

[NADO]

Thanks, you could pile a ton of line on with that thin braid too!

 

[efka]

Thanks, you could pile a ton of line on with that thin braid too!

i put double sided tape (it's light and thick) on the reel until it's 3/4 full and then put 150' of line which is half the spool. you only fish in 120' tops, why waste line.

 

[NADO]

You are using 2500 reels then? I just got some cool ice fishing reels to use this winter, cant wait to test them out.

 

[efka]

i don't like the small reels, they look nice on in the store, but on ice they never perform as good as regular reels, esp the drag.

 

[hightechdecks]

lightjigging/ livebait 2 24"ml stcroix premier w/ stripped down white river dc56 flyreels 6lb xl and seaguar 4-6lb good for most applications crappies to lakers
heavyjiggin 32 mh quantum w/ fenwick cartridge flyreel 10lb xl and seaguar 8-10 jigging spoons and darters, bucktail jigs
i also carry a couple spools of 4lb for hand bombing panfish

 

[dockmuskie]

I use tip up rods and minnows and about 12 beers everytime. Always a successful night.

 

[CanadianAngler87]

I use tip up rods and minnows and about 12 beers everytime. Always a successful night.

Its always the beers that help catch fish, no beer no fish.

 

[dockmuskie]

Its always the beers that help catch fish, no beer no fish.

Cant go ice fishing without then!