Ice Fishing's Greatest Innovation

[McGurk]

This is an easy one, the FLASHER!! I would turn around and go home if I ever forgot my Marcum LX5!

Smitty

I think you'd turn around without your auger, rods, or tackle, too.

[JuanArellano]

well I have to say the #1 thing that was the best thing ever is the Fish trap style shack, and then the Flasher... I don't know about you but I have fished out side in -30 with 30 mph wind, and have to say I don't really like it that cold. But I have agree with the flasher, I love my Vexilar and don't like to fish with out it.

[Vallejo]

You are so right McGurk!!

Smitty

[tsande00]

I don't own a cold weather suit and haven't been cold on the ice since I was a kid. If you dress in layers you're fine. For me it is thermal underwear, t-shirt, sweatshirt, insulated flanel shirt, and then my Carhart Jacket. Usually the jacket stays off unless I am hole hopping for extended periods or there is precip in the air

I personally don't feel the cold weather suits belong on this list. Everything else on the list is not replaceable...I mean a GPS is a GPS and a power auger is a power auger, etc. A cold weather suit can be had by dressing in layers. Technology in cold weather wear has not advanced as much from the days of the old snowmobile suits compared to the flashers or powered auger. Not saying they wouldn't' be nice to own, (I'd like one) just saying that the benefit isn't as extreme as some of the other list items.

[Modern Ice Angler]

I voted flasher, simply because it is the best fish producer I have seen, hands down. After a small bit of contemplation I probably should have answered internet, because although it hasn't caught me any fish directly, it has turned me onto a great many tips, tricks and tactics that I likely wouldn't have used. Great thread!

[Dylan33]

I was going to vote for whiskey, but its not an option! :}

+1

[Northlander]

Flasher. If there arent fish in the hole in 5 Im off finding some in another hole. No sit and pray.

[tsande00]

Flasher. If there arent fish in the hole in 5 Im off finding some in another hole. No sit and pray.

You must be in pretty good shape if you're going to hole hop with an old fashioned hand auger!

[Modern Ice Angler]

I hole hop all the time with a hand auger. Now to be fair, it is a Nils hand auger, so it wasn't exactly $20 to purchase.

[tsande00]

I hole hop all the time with a hand auger. Now to be fair, it is a Nils hand auger, so it wasn't exactly $20 to purchase.

You do that season round though? Even with a great hand auger, drilling 30+ holes through 20"-36" of ice would be too much work for most people...myself included.

My answer might be a flasher too, but I think some people are too quick to jump on it, taking some of our other advancements for granted.

[herefish101]

I voted flasher almost on instinct, but apon further thought, i'm going auger. It makas sense without a hole a flasher is pointless, now, with that said the flasher should almost drop to third because your flasher will do nothing if your not on structure so the gps/lakemaps should be second.

My new list

#1: Auger

#2: gps/lake maps

#3: flasher

#4: modern ice fishing rods

allthough all you really need is a hole some line a hook and some bait.

[bikeoutback]

I voted Internet for the reasons stated before. Learned on the internet that not only did I need a flasher but that pro's and con's of each kind of flasher, portable ice house, augers.... and most of that info just from this site.

[reinhard1]

whatever it took to make the first hole. i vote the chisel. the rest is history. good luck.

[Jack Peterson]

i voted power auger, because I can make some quick swiss cheese on the lake, and hole hop.

With or without my flasher. Drilling a dozen or two dozen holes over some structure allows me to check a hole after spending a few minutes at each one.

Typically, if the fish are there, they'll be near the bottom and hungry. having the ability to drill endless numbers of holes without losing arm strength is a major advantage.

People should realize that many good fishermen fish without flashers. They just don't waste time at holes that aren't holding fish.

With that said, I really like my flashers too!

[Northlander]

I found plenty of structure before GPS by looking at maps and looking at details of shorelines etc. I cut a lot of holes with my old Mora hand auger. Not 100 a day like I do now with a Nils. The internet wasnt around then. Home made ice houses out of tarps and plywood were the norm. These things helped me become better and more comfortable but my 1st Flasher made a world of difference. I can go back to old school with many things and still be ok but that flasher made me deadly and without it mu success would go way down.

[Jack Peterson]

Okay, I'm going to settle.

Without my power auger AND flasher, I probably wouldn't fish after the middle of January!

[PerchJerker]

Sonar and the Vexilar "Ice-Ducer" system, hands down had the largest impact on modern ice fishing as it impacted all aspects of the sport after that.

It influenced future shelter design direction and development, presentation strategies, system modality, lure development, ice augers, snowmobiles,..you name it.

On ice sonar got things really rolling.

This is just about exactly what I was going to post.

If we didn't have ice fishing sonars there sure wouldn't be much of a market for power augers and portable shelters.

The whoke concept of being mobile on the ice started with looking for fish with a sonar, not with punching lots of holes with a power auger.

[dbl a]

There was a lot less moving before hand augers too.

[jwmiller33]

the way I look at it is, for me, it without a doubt comes down to two; 1) the flasher and 2) the power auger. For me to decide which one is more important for me catching fish, I look at it like this....

Would I rather go ice fishing in January with:

a) a flasher and a hand auger (no power auger), OR

no flasher and a power auger

Without hesitation, I would much rather go ice fishing WITH my sonar and WITHOUT a power auger, if I had to choose between them. It would be a lot more work drilling the holes by hand, but I could spend all of my time fishing holes where I would be marking fish on the graph, instead of blindly fishing some holes and just hope that you are over fish.

[Fredd]

flasher and power auger for me in that order

[LMITOUT]

Power auger.

Flashers don't do much good without a hole.

[Northlander]

The hole is just a hole without a flasher. Nothing but a big guessing game. I will take a flasher and hand auger over a power auger and no flasher any day.

[mixxedbagg]

I went with flasher. I ice fish a lot every winter, but I'm terrible at it. At least with a flasher, I have moderate success...without it I'd just be drinking and listening to the radio in the cold.

Power auger is a distant second. Until last year, I used a hand auger. I was the guy out there cranking through 3' of ice. I got a power auger in the middle of last winter and I really like it, but if it went down, it wouldn't keep me at home.

I really like GPS too. I always bring mine with because if you locate a small hump or something, it's really nice to be able to get back to it. Plus, I actually use aerial photos to get coordinates for structure like sunken islands that you can't see through the ice and use the GPS to locate that structure. Works pretty nicely.

[hanson]

Power Auger.

If you guys have never tried to auger through 3' of ice with a Mora or spoon hand auger, goodness gracious. You didn't need fancy outerwear... by the time you had a half a hole augered, you were in a t-shirt dripping sweat.

You didn't move around. You picked a spot. Spent the next hour cutting holes in the ice. And sat there the rest of the day. You adjusted your depth to find the fish and that was it. If the fish weren't biting, you didn't move, it was just too much work to put a couple more holes in the ice.

My dad got his first power auger in 1984 or so. I got my first flasher in 1998.

Maybe ice fishing's greatest innovation was Dave Genz. He put all the tools together, and made those he didn't have, to develop the system (run & gun) we have today.

I'll suggest something else as a great innovation to ice fishing. Maybe not the greatest but a good one and that is the Ice Buster Bobber. Solved a world of problems years ago!!

[palisade1kid]

Without a doubt, flasher.

Sure, you can fish without one in December when the bite is hot and have a ton of success. Now try triggering those tougher fish in late January and February without one. The feedback the flasher gives you allows you to adjust what you are doing. It's not just telling you the fish are there. It tells you what the fish want. This single device gives the most improvement on success throughout the slow part of the season.

Second has to be power augers. Hole hopping is extremely effective, and drilling 30 holes by hand in February is simply not an option.

I totally agree OnAFly....yes we used to work the water column before while fishing blind ,but having the flasher you now can see when fish come into the cone.You can tell their mood which enables you to size the bait to their mood.You can see how high they will lift as the ceiling changes from day to day.

Take crappies for example...some lakes they suspend.Some they hold to the bottom. Having a flasher aides you into where they are and even if they are there.

A flasher helps to keep you on fish runnin & gunnin too so there's less down time in catching fish.

A flasher also helps to locate the breaks or identifing the depth changes quickly.

In my mind a flasher is the tool to use while patterning the fish.No other tool aides a fisher more in that endeavor.

And isn't putting the pattern together what it takes to catch fish?