Ice fishing is a great way to spend the time during the winter. It extends your fishing season, provides a new hobby, and you always have the chance to bring home some fresh fish as a meal. If you are new to the sport all the gear you need can be intimidating. Matt Johnson of Clam Outdoors breaks down the essential gear you’ll need as a new ice fishing angler.
Getting Geared Up for Ice Fishing: Ice Gear
Arguably the most important ice gear you can own as an angler is warm, reliable clothes. It is truly worth it to spend the money on nice base layers, a good waterproof and wind proof ice suit. Get a nice pair of gloves, hat, and nice boots.
You won’t be able to enjoy yourself if you are cold.
The clothes you wear out there onto the ice are going to be the most important thing.
Next let’s talk about ice houses. Big ice sleepers are really nice, but those are very expensive and not necessarily ideal if you are just getting into the sport.
If I was going to pick one house to start out with I’d chose a mid-sized hub house. Hub houses are nice, because they don’t take up a lot of space, but you can still fit a whole family inside to fish. They set up easily and are easy to transport.
Now when get down to the rods, reels, line of ice fishing the best advice I can give is try to determine what fish you’d like to target and choose your reel, reel, line that way.
If you want to catch smaller panfish, you’ll want lighter line like two, three or four pound test. Smaller jigs and spoons, and a light or noodle tipped rod.
Now if your interesting in fishing for multi-species you should choose a rod that can do little bit of everything. A medium or medium light powered rod paired with four or six pound test is a good option for bass, walleye, and other mid-sized fish.
The last essential piece of gear you’ll want to get is some type of ice flasher. It doesn’t have to be a top of the line flasher, but you’ll want to get yourself a unit so you’ll be able to locate fish.
Hopefully these tips help you find the essential gear you’ll need to get into ice fishing this winter.
