One question that get asked a lot is; what’s the best line for ice fishing? It is a simple question that doesn’t necessarily have a simple answer. In this video, Jeremy Smith breaks down the different types of line and shares his preferred line choice for two generalist setups.

Whats the Best Line for Ice Fishing

When you think about the best fishing line for ice fishing, there’s not necessarily a right or a wrong answer. Monofilament, fluorocarbon and braid all have a time and place out on the ice. The best answer I can give is it’s the line that works best for you.

When it comes to choosing the best line for ice fishing there are some general guidelines that you can use to make your fishing a little bit better.

What line you choose is totally dependent on how you want to fish and what you want to fish for. Because of that, I’m gonna go through two generalist setups. One for panfish and one for walleye and the line choices that I have for each species.

Let’s start with a panfish setup.

When you are fishing for panfish it’s almost always with small tungsten jigs or very small spoons. Because you use such small jigs for panfish I almost always use three pound Sufix Invisalign fluorocarbon.

It’s able to handle the small baits really well and I still have a lot of feel in order to detect those light bites. I feel like if you were to go heavier than that, you’ll get bite less, and if you were to go lighter you’ll break off more. I feel like that three pound test is right in the sweet spot.

Now for my walleye setup.

I like to use a four pound Sufix Advance Monofilament as my main line, and then I’ll attached it to a tiny barrel swivel and I will have a six to eight pound fluorocarbon leader.

As an angler who fishes outside majority of the time, that’s why I like to run monofilament and fluorocarbon. Now braid defiantly has a place on the ice and it make work better for you i’m just sharing with what works for me.