Safe ice – before you ice-fish

No fish is worth going through the ice for. Before you go out to ice-fish you need to judge the ice yourself and have the right safety kit in place. Treat this page as a reminder of the basics, not a promise that a given ice will hold. That responsibility is always yours, every time.

Never go out alone on uncertain ice. Judge the ice again every time, even on water you know well.

Basic rules

• Black-ice thickness. As a rule of thumb the black ice should be at least about 10 cm for one person. It is a thumb rule, because bearing depends on ice type, temperature and load.
• Never alone. Go with company and tell someone where you are going and when you are expected back.
• Right kit. Always wear ice picks around the neck, an ice pike to probe with, and preferably a throw line. A flotation suit adds more safety. How you wear them: ice picks, ice pike and throw line.
• Probe as you go. Check the ice in front of you with the ice pike all the way out, and turn back as soon as the pike goes through easily.

Where the ice is weak

Be extra careful at inlets and outlets and in sounds where the water moves, and at reeds, jetties, stones and shallows that lead heat or break the ice. Snow-covered ice also insulates and hides weak patches, and a snow layer can conceal both thin ice and open leads. Bright black ice, the dark ice, is usually stronger than white, air-filled ice, but always judge on the spot.

Do not trust other people’s tracks

That someone else has been out on the ice does not mean it holds you, or that it holds where you mean to walk. Ice can vary strongly on the same lake, thin at an inlet and thick a hundred metres away, and it may have worsened since the tracks were made. Treat other people’s presence as a weak clue, never as proof, and make your own judgement the whole way.

If something goes wrong

With ice picks you turn toward the way you came, where the ice held, drive the picks into the ice and pull yourself up. Roll away from the hole, do not stand until you are on safe ice, and seek warmth at once. Practise the technique under controlled conditions before the season, so it sits when it really matters. More about winter fishing and when ice fishing is on sits under winter fishing, and the rest of the rules under rules.