How to Take Care of Ice Fishing Equipment

Series Summary

Ice fishing can take place anywhere you have ice and fish in the same place. Well, a tray full of ice cubes and Stouffer's tuna casserole won't quite do the trick; the ice needs to be covering a body of water which is home to hearty fish who can live in very cold water and are accommodating enough to nibble on the bait of foolhardy humans wearing thermal suits or 12 layers of clothes. Apparently, ice fishing provides an ideal opportunity for introspection and contemplation in the Scandinavian countries and an opportunity to socialize and get drunk in the ice fishing lodges and resorts in North America, though the Finns and Norwegians have been known to mix vodka with their isolation. Ice fishing is a popular wintertime sport in Canada, Russia and the United States as well as in Scandinavia. Forest Lake, Minn. hosts one of the most popular ice fishing contests in the U.S. every February. Learn what you should do to keep your ice fishing equipment in top shape in this free fishing video. Our expert will explain how to take care of your "tip up" and auger. You will also learn how to adjust your sinkers and leaders.

Video Transcript

"Alright we're going to be talking about ice fishing tackle tips part one in this series. We're going to be talking about things like modifying a spoon for jigging for pan fish. How to attach a leader to your tip up line, to your jig rod, and one of the things that we're going to talk about which is really, really important but a lot of people bypass, they don't think about it, is caring for your tackle, caring for your tip ups, caring for your jig rods, for your ice augers, for your hand chisels. What do you do at the end of the day when you're done fishing to make sure that your equipment is going to be there and is going to be in a state that is workable the next time you use it? Cleaning these items after you're done, drying them out, making sure that for some of them you don't have any nicks or frays in the line, because the last thing you want is for when you go fishing the next day to find that you had a nick in your line and you go in to pull in that big fish and all of a sudden your line breaks and it's because you didn't take the ten seconds needed to check that line after your last fishing trip."