Hole hopping spooked fish?

I have a question that I’ve never seen asked here. How do you hole hop fish that are spooked from the sunlight going through the holes? I had about 40 holes open today and they would only hold fish for about 10 minutes then they would be dead. Re-checking the holes all day showed no fish, but if I drilled a hole 10 feet away under the snow there would be fish. I had to keep drilling new holes every time I needed to move. If I drilled 2-3 holes by the time I’m done fishing one all three are dead.

How do you guys with power augers do it? That cannot be fun at all to start it up every 5 minutes for a new hole. Since I WILL be getting a power auger by the end of this season, its something I have been thinking about.

One thing that came to mind was to drill the hole and kick the slush in, then draw an X or something in the snow where the hole is, then carry a small scoop on me to clear the hole enough to get my line down, then kick it full of slush again when I move. That way I could pop 30 holes at the start and the fish shouldn’t leave, right?

Kevin, I don’t clear the snow off the ice and leave slush in the holes. This helps with the light and the bite.

Kevin it’s rare for me to actually use a scoop and clean the slush out of my holes I tend to just slush it out with the auger so there’s still ice in my hole that might help cut down the light.

Are you fishing shallower water, or heavily pressures water?

I hole hop a lot and I have ran in to that in shallower water and heavily pressured water. The one thing I do is to always swing the transducer because if those fish are holding off to the side of the holes you can try to jig them in or know what direction to move to get back on top of them. I never stray far from the auger when I’m on the ice and yes sometimes you spend a lot of time restarting the auger just to cut a few holes to keep on top of them.

The areas I fish are VERY heavily pressured. 8-10 acre lakes with a dozen or more people fishing every day.

Same set up as you would use for a tip up cover. Piece of plywood with a slot for your string. You still can have a clear hole when its time to haul them out but yet concealed light penetration.