Drill, Baby, Drill!

A Simple Formula to Locate Fish

By Jason Durham, Clam Outdoors Pro-Staff

 Ice fishing is hard work. Think about this; on open water, our boats are constantly moving. Even if anchored, there is a slight differentiation in position of a few feet. Under more common scenarios, we are under constant or intermittent propulsion from a trolling motor, kicker motor or main engine. Another natural precipitator of boat movement is wind and waves. Yet on the ice, we’re forced to pick out our target areas hole by hole, inches in diameter at a crack.

Step into the mind of the modern ice angler and you’ve got solutions. But prepare to work. It’s unlikely one hole will do. If you truly want to find the fish, the formula is simple: muscle power+patience x some extra auger fuel=fish.

Back-track just a handful of decades and anglers pursued fish through the ice much differently. Gas ice drills were available, but not nearly as common as they are today. Propane powered drills weren’t even a consideration. Instead, a chisel or hand auger were conventionally routine. The pure exertion required to repetitively hammer out hole after hole was enough to prompt an angler to complacently sit in unproductive fishing areas, if anything, just to catch their breath.

Now we’ve got ice drills with highly-honed blades, fueled on what seems like superpower. Not only can you drill faster and with less effort, you can effectively cover water, even while separated from the fish by a few feet of ice and via simple human propulsion to search laterally. Incorporating a GPS with mapping capabilities offers ice anglers even more precision and flexibility, allowing them to drill fewer holes by placing them close to structural elements before starting the auger and permits easy navigation for revisiting the exact area weeks, months, even years later.

Yet even if you find the area you’ve plotted and predicted to have active fish, you still have to drill. And if the fish aren’t there, you drill some more. Drill, baby, drill.

First, rely upon your GPS to get you in close proximity to the structure you want to search. Now fire up your auger and drill holes in a span as big or even half as big as a football field. It’s easiest with a few “teammates” to assist. Walking 10 to 15 steps between holes have a friend drop in the transducer of your Vexilar FL-series flasher, Fish Scout DTD underwater camera or both. With Vexilar’s Double-Vision pack, both the flasher and underwater camera are available for quick use in a single carrying case. They are simultaneously useful and act as your eyes below the ice.

If you find a school of fish, drop your lines and catch ‘em! As you hone-in on the active fish, drill even more holes, but within closer proximity of the active fish. Now you might space the holes with only 3 to 5 steps between them. But don’t put the ice drill in your truck yet…fish move and you may have to start from a large platform and concentrate your efforts into a smaller area again and again over the course of a day—that is, if you want to consistently catch fish! Drill, baby, drill!