Ice drill for ice fishing

You stand on the ice with the mittens off, the crank in your hand and an idea of where the fish ought to stand. The drill takes, cuts through, and out of the hole comes first slush and then black water. Now you have a circle to get a living, running rainbow trout through. If the circle is too tight the fish turns against the edge, the hook lets go and you stand with a slack line and a memory.

What decides is diameter, crank versus electric, blades, how you drill and why the ice scoop belongs in the same grip. Whether the ice holds is under safe ice. Probe first. A large hole on thin ice is not safer fishing. We do not judge ice conditions.

Diameter

On put and take you aim at salmonids, not at small perch. The perch comes up like a stick. A rainbow comes up like a bent spring: it shakes, it refuses, it takes sideways in the hole. If there are large fish in the pond the diameter is the difference between a landing and a loss against the ice edge. The hole is a limit you cannot adjust afterwards.

Around 110 millimetres is the perch and competition hole. It is easy to drill and gives many holes in a short time, but it is too tight when a strong fish has to be turned. You should not buy it because it is common if you fish rainbow trout.

Around 125–130 millimetres is the compromise, the all-round drill. Many crank it all winter. It takes fish around a kilo if you are calm in the playing and the fish goes cleanly, but it gives you less to work with the day a two-kilo comes sideways.

Around 150 millimetres is the diameter you should start from if you buy a drill for rainbow trout and Arctic char. The hole is large enough to turn a fish in, and still crankable for most people. It is also the size many ready ice-fishing packs put in the bag, for just that reason: salmonids, not competition perch.

Around 200 millimetres is the large-fish hole. It is heavy and slow, and what you want when the water stocks fish that do not fit a ten-centimetre hole. On a small pond with a walk from the car it is extra weight. On thick northern ice where you drill many holes it is the electric drill’s job. Still larger diameters belong to ice bait fishing for pike more than to jigging in put and take.

Larger holes take longer. That is why sharp blades matter more than chasing the outer diameter you cannot be bothered to use. A dull 200 drill is worse than a sharp 150: you slog, the hole becomes a funnel, and you stop drilling extra holes.

Crank, electric and cold

A hand-cranked drill is enough for most put-and-take sessions. The car park is close, the ice is seldom a metre thick, and you drill three to eight holes, not thirty. A crank starts at twenty below, weighs less in the packing and is quiet, which matters when you do not want to tramp around like a tractor over a small pond. It needs no battery that dies when you need it.

An electric drill with a battery pays off when the ice is thick, when you search for fish by drilling again, or when the knees and shoulders should not crank 150 millimetres through fifty centimetres of ice. The drawback is weight, price and cold. Lithium wants to be warm. Keep the battery in an inside pocket, change at the hole and expect the capacity to drop to half on a cold morning. Take a spare battery, or a crank as backup, and do not leave the drill with the battery in on the ice while you jig.

A cordless driver with an adapter kit is a middle way some people take. It weighs less than a full electric drill, but the drivers are seldom made for ice and cold. If you go that way: extra battery against the body, and a crank handle so you are not left standing with a dead tool.

A drill with adjustable shaft length is not decoration. Short when you drill on your knees early in the season, longer when the ice has grown and you stand. The auger length must reach through the ice plus a little more, or you stand grinding with the crank in your stomach against the ice. On early ice that is seldom a problem. In March, when the ice is thick, it is the whole difference.

Blades

The blades are the whole point of the drill. New blades cut. Old ones grind, jump and tear the hole into a funnel. Change or sharpen when you feel you are putting in more than the ice gives. You notice it: the crank gets heavy, the drill wanders, and you sweat in sitting still in the cold. Then it is the blades, not bad ice.

Do not drill into the bottom. Gravel and stone take the edges in a moment, especially in shallow put-and-take ponds where the ice can sit over half a metre of water and then mud. Feel when the drill goes through and the water sprays. Then you are done. Do not force on to be sure. You are already through. The rest is bottom.

The guard should sit on the blades when the drill lies in the bucket or pulk. An unguarded drill in a chair pack cuts both fabric and whatever happens to be fingers. Dry the blades after the session so they do not bloom with rust in the bag. Salt from roads and meltwater does the same if you load in the car with wet blades against the floor.

How you drill a hole you can fish in

Probe the way out, not three blows at the bank and then a walk. When you have chosen a spot: clean ground so the auger does not take snow and gravel, a steady grip, vertical. Let the drill work. Do not push as if you were driving a nail. Sharp blades pull themselves down. A slanted hole gives an oval the fish snags in and that you step on at the edge.

When the water comes you crank up, lift the drill straight and scoop with the ice scoop. The hole is not fish-ready until you see black water and a clean edge. The slush that stays freezes into a crust over the line. Do not sit with your feet in the edge. Leave a clear ring so you see the hole when snow drifts. On bright ice the edge is hard to see. A small heap of slush beside the hole, not in it, is enough as a mark.

Several holes beat one still one. Rainbow trout moves. You should be able to drill again without it feeling like a training session. That is why sharp blades and the right diameter belong with how you fish, not only with how you land. A too large, dull drill makes you stay in the wrong place from tiredness.

The ice scoop belongs with the drill

Call it a spoon if you like. Without it the hole is a slush hole. Choose a scoop that goes down in your diameter. A wide scoop in a small hole does not go down. A short shaft you hold with a mitten. Scoop into the wind so the slush does not blow back. When you jig and it snows you scoop again, or the hole grows shut from above. When it is cold you scoop before the line goes down, and again when ice forms a film at the edge.

The packing around the drill — rod, picks, bucket, scoop — is under ice-fishing tackle. The first session under the first ice-fishing trip.