Here’s an update as promised. I emailed Clam a while back and received a reply tonight which I will paste below. I explained what was happening and if I could send them in for exchange or if there were any options. I was pleasantly suprised and the reply says it all about their customer service.

Big thanks to Mindy from Clam Corp.

Mike,

Thank you for your inquiry and I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. We are answering all requests in the order in which they are received.

I am sorry to hear about your gloves, we can for sure take care of this for you. Could I please get your address so I can send you out a replacement pair of Ice Armor X gloves (8572) right away for you.

Thank you,

Mindy

Well I was suprised to see how mixed the replies were. My experiences have been like a few where they just don’t shed any water. I did a little test at home by putting a glove on, giving it a quick splash of water under the facet and have a piece of tissue paper in the glove to show if there is any dampness. Well it was easy to feel and the tissue paper showed the moisture went right into the glove. I wore them yesterday fishing and again the cable from the camera was enough to get the palm wet all the way through. I’m going to check and see about sending them in and hopefully see if the next pair are better. And like others have stated they seem to absorb right in and take forever to dry out.

I’m not out to bash the product but get a sense of others experiences. I will let you know how the customer service thing goes and if I get a new pair up date if they are any better.

I appreciate all the feedback.

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I have a pair that I use for plowing snow on the ATV. worked 17 hours on Friday and ended up having to stop using the gloves after a while. Not because they were wet, but my hands were sweating because they were too warm. I like them overall. I got them on sale for $25, so that makes me like them more.

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I’ve used them a few times for plowing and I stayed very warm but then again my hands never really get cold no matter what gloves while plowing.

But once your gloves get wet it’s pretty much all over with from there which seems to be the issue I’m having.

Thanks again for you input.

ps. I should add that I bought my father-in-law the ‘regular’ short ice armor gloves and they seemed to be a nicer glove than the newer X-gloves.

Thanks for the input guys. Just by looking at the gloves I can not see any defects that would cause the issue with the gloves not being “water resistance”. They are actually still damp inside today and a friend at work (who also ice fishes a lot) tried them on and noticed moisture still inside and I hadn’t said anything to him about it at that point. The area I’m speaking that got wet was the palm of the hand. I guess I could try getting another pair and see if they are better. The thread issue on the back of the hand kind of bugs me anyways.

Thanks again.

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chubby darter by salmo

but you can’t go wrong with rapala

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Hey, that wasn’t me this time!

I’ve bought cheaper ‘jiggin raps’ before in a few different off brands to save a little $$$, well half of them the plastic tail fell off (cheaply glued) before I even got a chance to use them and the others had small cheap hooks and worse yet cheap hook ‘hangers’ or thru wire. That’s why I’ve never really gave the raps a chance yet but I’m going to this year and I will break down and buy the actual Rapala brand. I’m sure the Nils and a few others are good quality but they just are not available in my area.

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Well, you could come on out to the MarCum “More Power” event on White Bear Lake on the 20th and see what is available as far as products are concerned. There will be portables, wheel shacks, lots of flashers (obviously) and if you’re a freeze baby I’ll bring my extra snosuit for you to wear. I’ll have extra rods and bait so my thinking is you could basically get a day on the ice at absolutely no cost to you to see if you dig the experience or not and there will be lots of opportunities to kick tires on all sorts of products.

Let me know if you’re interested. I’m going anyway so really all I would need to do is throw the snosuit in the truck so it wouldn’t be any extra hassle at all.

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Just can’t say enough about the IDO staff and the above is proof. I was hooked on the first episode and I’m glad I followed up with the website/forum. Great work and professionalism guys!

I started out with a couple of #5’s and used them both for ‘eyes and pike. Since then I have added some 6’s and the new 3’s. I feel your heart ache with getting bit off. One issue with these lures if you use a heavy leader or heavy snap it affects the action of these things greatly. So I would just suggest 6’s for pike so that they still have good action without giving all the local pike lip jewelry. Your Tyger Wire is a good idea and I’ve been thinking about doing that lately. I like the #5’s overall the most and hope to try the 3’s for perch soon.

All in good fun..

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Starting to see a pattern but I’m a Chubby Darter fan. I built up my confidence with these lures on pike first before I moved to walleyes with them. Adding bait kills the action so I don’t use any on them. You should at least have one or two of these in the box.

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The tried and true blade bait is a pike killer as well. Particularly in stained or off-colored water. I talked to a well known Red Lake guide at the ice show earlier in december and he was all excited about how well the BFT blades were working for walleyes and pike on Red Lake. The vibration kicked off by that type of lure is undoubtedly felt by any pike within a 1/4 mile radius.

PS – Orange Tiger was the hot color. At least on Red.

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Definitly not saying it’s the only lure to use (and I’m not a marketing guy for them either!) but I started off using them for pike and they worked great. I have a box full of spoons, mini-airplanes, mag airplanes, and even “sonar” lures and sometimes they prefer one over the other. I usually start off with an aggressive lure like the darter and hole hop. If I don’t get anything within the first 5 minutes or so off to the next one. If I can’t get anything to go but I see them on the Marcum then I slow down. A lot of great lures to choose from now a days! Just sharing a little personal experience.

Starting to see a pattern but I’m a Chubby Darter fan. I built up my confidence with these lures on pike first before I moved to walleyes with them. Adding bait kills the action so I don’t use any on them. You should at least have one or two of these in the box.

Did any of these lakes have a “natural source” of this type of bait? I’ve used each of those for pike on LOTW late in the season but never on a lake that didn’t have that type of forage in it.

Thanks again!

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I use them on my planar boards as well

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Man, that’s a good idea!

Most of the time the underlying force of ‘Stupid’ is laziness. I work in an industry where a number of accidents can occur, some even being fatal, and when it came down to the root cause the person took a short cut driven by laziness.

It’s to bad people don’t lean towards the cautious side but it really gets me when I see people doing this stuff with kids involved who rely on the adult for make good decisions!

OK I said enough…….

Chubby darter or a spoon (~2″) with minnow head. I like Flyer Spoons but the Slender spoon look like they would be a good choice also. Sometimes that little more flash and hang time is what they want.

Good luck…

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When the fish stops moving, most of the time it is letting go of the bait too turn the bait so it can swallow it head first. Wait until the fish starts to move again before slowly tightening the line and when you feel the fish, set the hook.

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That’s what has been explained to me also many years ago. When I approach the tip up if the fish is still running I will set the hook immediately but if the rod isn’t spinning then I will wait until the fish starts moving away and then set the hook. I never set when the fish is still. That’s in general.

Also if the fish is just sitting there, not moving, I will pick up some of the slack until I barely feel the fish. Once the fish feels that little resistance it will start moving again. Then I just feed them a little line to make sure they are fully turned away from the hole and then I set the hook.

We’ve all had bad days tip up fishing and it gets frustrating.

Hopefully that made sense.. Good Luck

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In regards to the comments on the VX-1, the features on it are meant to compare-to, and exceed, the features on an FL-18……for a fraction of the cost!

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Seen that when comparing units and that’s exactly why I bought it! No brainer for me

One more comment, the power head is very quiet on my Marcum. I couldn’t get any more for my $200, NEW!

All of the above info is spot on. If you are going from a FL-8 to something with zoom features you will wonder how you ever lived without. I bought the VX-1 when it first came out as my first (and only so far) flasher and the zoom is a fantastic feature for a ‘budget’ unit. The zoom gives you that better target seperation. I fished next to a number of FL-8’s and they are good units but it was night and day when trying to see bottom hugging walleyes in 20+ fow.

Thanks for the replies. I’ve pretty much only heard of the lift, drop, hold a second, then repeat. And maybe throw a jiggle in there during the hold portion. So I wanted to see what else was getting bit out there.

I pretty much do the same thing with the darter, work it good until a fish comes in and then play keep away a little bit. I was excited when I got my first fish on the darter (no bait also, ruins the action)now I have something new to look forward to with the Jig-N-Raps. I know the darter seems to produce some of my bigger fish and I’ve heard the same for these other lures.