It's great to be thinking icefishing again.
No specialized clothing for icefishing. Mostly my late season deer hunting gear. Mickey mouse boots are the one thing I always have on. Love those things on the ice but you need cleats if there is no snow.
I usually have 4 or 5 rods with. One with 1 lb, two with 2 lb, one with 3 and maybe one with 4 lb if the lake has many catfish, walleyes or pike in it. The 1 lb rod is a noodle rod and the others are graphite of varying light actions. One of the 2 lb rods will always have a spring bobber. I have a couple older quantum micro lite reels I like for icefishing, I have a couple new mitchell reels to try out the winter.
In my pockets I always have a lighter and/or some matches, spare mantels, spare pool or two, forceps, small flashlight, head lamp, mylanta, ibuprofen, tape measure and I think that is about it.
Last year I tried to use as little bait as possible for crappies and bluegills. I did use crappie nibbles, gulp maggots, powerbait and lindy mini plastics. So much easier to keep and I did very good with them.
For jigs I use a lot of moon glow jigs, 1/80-1/32 oz roundhead jigs, a few larger rocker jigs for perch, some pimples and the smallest jiggin raps for when the crappies are moving fast and biting good.
Last year I did tie some small hair jigs kind of like THE JIG and they did work but I need more confidence in them before I'll use them in the prime times. I'm going to try some hair jigs made with the smallest tube jig heads I can make, 1/32 I think. The long thin profile looks good, we will see.
Right now I'm shackless. I use to have a homemade flip over. Worked good but was a little too heavy to drag far. I need to correct this situation soon.
Got a 20 year old Magnum III auger. I need to put on a new blade but it runs fine after a carb kit.
For a flasher I have a Marcum VX-1 that worked great last winter and am looking forward to getting it back on the ice. I used a Hummingbird flasher for the decade before that, I don't know how anyone can fish for crappies through the ice without a good flasher.
Last but not least I use a red 5 gallon bucket to carry my rods and to sit on. Not sure how I got the first one but after a few years of using one red bucket it just felt right to always have one.
Tim
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