Unfreezing Line on Ice Fishing "Tip Up" Spool

Video Transcript

"Let's talk, now, about a huge frustration for ice anglers everywhere, and that's when the reel, the line on your tip up reel freezes. And this happens all the time. It can happen if you didn't think to bring your tip ups in after your last ice fishing trip and thoroughly dry them out. It can also just happen on the ice. Say, you know, that we had out tip up down the hole, we caught a fish, so we brought it up while the tip up was exposed to the air, all the line froze on the reel. Well, now, how do we continue fishing? What do we do if we have a big fish on and it wants to take out more line? Number of different ways to do it, one of the easiest ways is simply to wrap your fingers around that spool and squeeze and hold for probably one to two minutes depending on how thick the ice is. At that rate, usually you can start to unwind it pretty good, and you might want to unwind up to, you know, fifty, seventy feet of line, depending on what type of fish you're fishing for, and then reel it back up. The other way to do it, is just simply put the tip up reel back down the hole and leave it there for a minute of two. Again, that water is going to thaw the ice, you can bring it back out, and then usually your line comes off nice and easily."