What Annoys You Most About Ice Fishing

Eelpoutguy wrote:

He11 I guess the part I hate the most is being lonely out there.

Post GPS coordinates and I would be glad to join you with my bearcat or atv.

Adam Steffes wrote:

Mobility bothers me the most. I am getting out of shape pretty bad and I end up only wanting to set up once so I end up just sitting in unproductive water some times because I don’t have an established set of honey holes to sit on.

You have to get a couple buddies together.
Me and 2 guys from this site run and gun every weekend morning, it’s really nice having 2 like minded guys to fish with. We all put in lots of work to find fish. Some times it’s 10 minutes of searching and some times it’s 4 hours. I would hate the ice if I didn’t stay so mobile.

Jake D wrote:

People and Iowans

EXCUSE ME??

…it’s Iowegians…

Yeah the mobility part sucks, knowing you need to do a bunch of work to move if you want to stay on fish. Sometimes it’s a tough call if you’re comfortable and have had a few, and especially if you have a buddy with who isn’t too hardcore.

One time on a metro lake a few years back I was sitting on a shallow weed flat 12’ with weeds almost halfway up. In the first hour or so I got a small pike and a 25” walleye on a chubby darter right above the weeds. No more bites for another hour or so and I decided to move deeper. Packed up, moved 30 yards away to the basin in 28 feet, dropped down two consecutive times with immediate 16” and 19” eaters. Was glad I moved.

Have also done that with crappies after the bite died.

#1 trash

#2 can’t figure out for the life of me as a fisherman, if you’re on fish or a good bite and/or lake, why blast it all over social media? Gotta get them “likes” I guess.

Our small lakes in NE SD are starting to feel the fishing pressure. Crazy when 5-6 years ago nobody had a clue where a lot of the now popular lakes were. Heck you gotta get there at 5AM to find a spot to park even during the middle of the week.

SoDak Fisher Guy wrote:

#2 can’t figure out for the life of me as a fisherman, if you’re on fish or a good bite and/or lake, why blast it all over social media? Gotta get them “likes” I guess.

This. Good call.

Drives me insane how much people give away online, but especially Fakebook. I pretty much quit using it in general nowadays, but a couple years back when I still poked around fishing pages I couldn’t believe the amount of people giving up every last detail. Pretty sure that alone has spoiled quite a few lakes and spots.

The WIND and chatty Karls’s and Kathy’s that blast their successes all over the interwebz fishing for likes and attention. Especially folks on YouTube that freely name the lakes they are catching the fish with detailed how too instructions.

Panoptics/ livescope. Takes all the work out of it

Wind wind wind and I’m in North Dakota too. I can’t imagine living anywhere else though.

Also ice fishing is slower and I can’t just go play with smallmouth bass whenever I get bored walleye fishing in the summer. I’m lazy and don’t like moving. Once my house is set up, anchored, and moved in, I sit there till dark or camp. Also I like to be comfortable and haul a ton of gear.

That’s about it. Wind sucks. And if I pick up the fly rod, the wind usually gets worse.

I agree with others on people, trash, and the general increasing trend of disrespect towards others. Maybe I’m the only one with this other annoyance and it is unique to me. This applies to open water also.

That is the smell of fabric softener, particularly Bounce, wafting across the air across the lake. Last year, my first out for the season, on early ice, had the trifecta. Went out with no one else around. Had a large noisy group drill holes cmpletely around me within 10 feet. They “fished” while their kids played hockey directly through where I was fishing. A portable fish house nearby set up and blared music loudly, and the strong smell of Bounce replaced the usual light pine scent. Prompted a move but could not escape the loud music or smell in the area I wanted to fish.

On the good days, nothing. On the bad days, as others have mentioned, it’s the thing you forgot to bring that you really need. It’s just dealing with all of the crap as you load in and out. It’s the wind blowing something away across the lake. It’s the auger that gives out on you. It’s the boot that starts to leak while drilling holes. It’s the fact that everything is harder to do in the winter as compared to summer fishing.

For people complaining about the people, there is a lot of lake out there.

Ice

A group (2 to 4 guys with half dozen or more rug rats) of people that set tip ups out 30 yards apart on a piece of structure and complain when you want to fish it also. They cover 300 yard square and expect no one else to move inside the square. Yet they don’t seem to mind moving in on you. ?????

#1 is trash, but that’s always. I just clean it up when I find it. Some of you who spend time on the river pool 3 might have even seen me circling around in the summer scooping up pop bottles and cups with my landing net.

#2 would be the fact that I cannot for the life of me figure out my perfect setup. One day I like the popup, the next I like the flipover, but the flipover doesn’t fit under the tonneau cover because otter can’t shave an inch of height off their tubs. I’ve bought and sold at least 1-2 shacks every year trying to find my favorite setup. I’m realizing it’s just not gonna happen and I’ll have to play it by ear.

KPE wrote:

#2 would be the fact that I cannot for the life of me figure out my perfect setup. One day I like the popup, the next I like the flipover, but the flipover doesn’t fit under the tonneau cover because otter can’t shave an inch of height off their tubs. I’ve bought and sold at least 1-2 shacks every year trying to find my favorite setup. I’m realizing it’s just not gonna happen and I’ll have to play it by ear.

Yes. When you are in the hub, you are longing for the flipover for the mobility. When you are in the flipover, you are longing for the hub for the room and lighter weight. When in either you are longing for the wheelhouse.

In the summer, you may have another boat on your mind, but overall, you are just happy to be out there.

The following is copied and pasted from my other thread. I thought it belonged here more…

It isn’t that I don’t like other people, but I don’t understand the compulsive behavior to create towns on the ice. It’s as though people go to a lake, look at a group, and go there. For what reason I can’t even imagine. I’ve fished in these groups before, and I can’t recall a single time in my life where I ever caught any decent fish. I’m pretty well convinced that when you get 25+ people in a group, the fish are scared from the area. I’ve got no problem at all with others coming over and chatting. It’s when 5 guys come from across the lake to fish within 100 yards of me, usually never saying a word to me that I don’t like. It is a phenomenon unique to ice fishing. I do understand completely when I’m fishing a well known producing spot, or when there’s already a ton of holes, but when you are on a virgin section of a lake, no holes, and all you are doing is looking for fish, what are those other guys doing? I simply can not understand what drives a person to flock to others, that they don’t get when they are in a boat.

I have luckily not had any big problem with trash. Sure, you see the occasional cup, bag, or something else. I’ve had my share of plastic fly away from me. Maybe it’s because I’ve always lived and fished in more rural areas, but I’ve been on some extremely hard hit lakes, and am fairly happy with the lack of trash. Any I see, I throw in the sled and get on with my day. I see where some have mentioned things like seeds, and I really don’t get why that’s an issue. Sure, it is litter, but if it’s natural material that will biodegrade, who cares? I’ve personally got no problem at all with sunflower seeds. Same with bait. When Minnesota got really dumb with their AIS laws a few years back, you saw all kinds of bait all over.

I hear you guys completely on the never quite perfect setup. I will say I’ve hated, and I mean HATED hub houses since the day I bought one. This was back when they were a new fad, so maybe they have improved. The final straw for me was one day I was out on a really cold day, got into a school of sunfish, just having a good time. It wasn’t windy at all, so I hadn’t tied out the hubs, then out of the blue, possibly a wind gust, one hub blew in, smashed the heater, ended up burning a hole in the house, burned my fishing line off, and I couldn’t get the heater to restart after that. This was after weeks of me fighting this hub house, sides always blowing in, trying every ice anchor out there to find one that wasn’t such a PITA, and so on. That hub house found it’s way right into the trash can. Now at least there are other options for portables. Myself, I’ve come full circle, and have gone back to a suitcase. I fish out in the open until I find where I want to be, then set up the house. It’s so much more comfortable. One day I’d like to build a base out of aluminum, but that’s for another day.

The thing that I am really struggling with is a decent heater, and have been for years. There was once a time you could go to just about any bait shop, and buy a made in USA sunflower heater head that could screw right to a propane tank. They could get hotter than heck, and always worked. I swear a sunflower could work in a rain storm. If you got hungry, you turned it sideways, and if you had a pan, you could cook on it. Well apparently enough people managed to suffocate and burn themselves that they just aren’t what they used to be. You can still buy sunflower heaters, but they are half the quality they used to be. The last one I bought was hard to light, and sounded like a trombone when it was heating up. It was warm though.

The only other real propane options are the buddy heaters, and they are the pinnacle of a nanny society. My first one was a small, and it gave off about as much heat as a candle. My second one was a big buddy, and it was reasonably warm, IF YOU COULD GET IT TO LIGHT. I’d be out there for 10-20 minutes sometimes, click, click, click. Even when it was lit, don’t look at it. You could blow the pilot out from your chair. Any ice cracking shut it off. If you were too rough on the ride out, it would never light at all. And what a gas hog with 1 pound tanks. Finally one day the ice cracked, it shut off, and I couldn’t get it to light. I packed up, went home, and beat the snot out of it with a sledge hammer. My third buddy heater (second big buddy) is one of the yellow ones, and I’m not sure how that is different. I did all the mods to it with the pilot probe, tipover switch, and I’m running it off a refillable tank. It’s acceptable, not good. With 1 pound tanks, it would run 2 tanks out in about 2 hours. With a refillable 5 pound tank, it will go at least 8 hours. This one is still super touchy, you have to have it on perfectly level surface, or it will go out and not light. At least this one doesn’t go from the ice cracking. I did have to add a windsheild around the pilot, otherwise that would blow out all the time when you open the door. It still takes a long time to start, but it’s better with the refillable tank. The first time I start it in a day, I just sit there on prime for a good 2 minutes, and then it will usually start. After the first start of the day, it will then restart in 30 seconds or so after that. I have tried cooking over it, but it isn’t that hot, and if you ever get a drip on those catalyst, it’s game over. It starts, and it heats after a bunch of work to it, and that’s about the best I can say about it.

This might sound odd, but I’m seriously considering a titanium wood stove for my next heater. I’m sick of the Chinese made propane junk that has become of ice fishing heaters. Heck, I might even drag out my old steel wood stove yet. They are very hot, as reliable as your wood is, and you can’t get a better surface to cook on. I used this stove in my skid house for years, and boy do I miss it. The only disadvantage is with wood, they take up about twice the space, but I’m starting to think it is worth it.

My fishing buddy has a second home in Shawano WI and we fish there a lot. At one end of Shawano Lake is town of Cecil. In the winter it seems like half of Cecil is on the ice. People socialize, BBQ, kids throw frisbees and footballs. On weekends there is stock car racing on the ice. Ice fishing is just one part of it.

Slush and wind

I hate wind winter AND summer! Now I’m not talking a breeze. I mean wind of 15 mph on up. The dam weatherman never seems to get the wind projection right.

Wildlifeguy wrote:

Not a thing. I don’t own a boat so ice season means I get to fish on my own, where I want, when I want, and how long I want, without needing to rely on someone else to get me there. It’s my absolute favorite time of the year.

Exactly 💯 my situation. Although when I drill a dozen holes around a hump and a guy pulls up and has his child start cleaning those holes for him…

Meh, I’d probably go out and help. I’m pretty chill, when it comes to ice fishing. There’s a lot more serious problems in the world than someone fishing my holes. Hell, if the kid enjoyed himself it’d probably make my day.

Yep – Trash is easily #1

Wind is #2
as stated above windy … 15mph and / or gusty

Wildlifeguy wrote:

Meh, I’d probably go out and help. I’m pretty chill, when it comes to ice fishing. There’s a lot more serious problems in the world than someone fishing my holes. Hell, if the kid enjoyed himself it’d probably make my day.

I agree. If someone is out there with kids trying to fish and teach them I don’t really care what they do. I’d prefer to help or maybe drill some extra holes for them.

After getting our 5yo daughter out a few times on the ice last year you realize what it’s like to try and fish with kids. Can go from extremely gratifying to frustrating in seconds!

loading my trailer and truck to head out is always exciting. But unloading and putting everything away when I’m tired, wet and cold…that’s annoying.

^I used to think that too.

I’ve switched up my fishing to do the opposite of what everyone else is…I’ve gone lighter. A 1 man flip on a smitty sled lets me pull for miles of secluded backwaters where I’m far more likely to have success. I’m so much more productive and likely to go out on a whim this way. When I get home the only things that comes out of my truck are my electronics and the 2 drill batteries I take with.

The idea of loading a trailer/ice castle/atv and grill, propane tanks, chairs, etc. are not my idea of fun. I do have a large Otter insulated hub that goes out if I’m going with a group, in which case an ATV goes too. However, 90% of my outings are light, productive, and efficient with minimal packing or unloading. If I had to drag half of the stuff some guys do, I’d find a new hobby.

Yes. I love helping kids learn how to fish. At least let me fish the holes I did the work for. I would have drilled more holes for them. Just have manners & ask. A valuable lesson could have been taught.

I hate the people that come on the lake LATE in the day and decide the fish are biting 10’ from your house…that has been set up since early morning…..then proceed to call all there buddies to come and set up around them….next thing you know your feeing like you live in the twin cities!!!

don’t know if I was annoyed or just found it odd, for 3 mornings in a row I had to drill some holes for a guy that was fishing by me because he kept “forgetting his auger”

Ahh the old I forgot my auger trick. I was fishing Knife with a friend and this old man in a small skid house, asked if I could drill out a couple holes for him as they had frozen over, of course I helped him out. Later my friend told me he did the same thing to him the other day. No big deal, just had me wondering if he even owned one.