I tried out two new products this weekend and both of them worked very good. Good enough that I want to share them with you.
First, the Happy Snapper Pole Holder. I am sure a lot of you are familiar with them but I had never used one. They sure are slick. Basically they are a deadstick rod holder that can work as a tip-up/tip-down. Your rod hangs at the “balance” point from this rod holder. If you get a bite and the fish pulls, your rod tips down. If the fish hit your bait and come up with it, the rod tip will come up. I was using it for walleye and set my drag really lose so the fish would tip the rod down but be able to pull line off really easy. This weekend they were tippin it down. Then I would walk over, crank the drag down and WHAM. Worked perfect!! I was never big on freestanding rod holders but this one worked to good not to use again.
The second thing I tried this weekend was the tip-up hole covers made by Stone Legacy. This is a thermal cover that fits any standard tip-up. You simply slide it over the tip-up shaft and set it over the hole. I was amazed at how well these work. After 3 hours of tip-up fishing at -13 degrees, the holes with the hole covers had no ice on them. The holes without, we actually had to chisel out the ice.
Both of these products worked great. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t be telling you about them. Both are worth checking out if you do a lot of ice fishing.