Ice Fishing - Ice Safety

There are a lot of miscellaneous safety tips that a lot of ice fishers are unaware of – so here’s a list of precautions you should always take:

- When driving on ice using an enclosed vehicle, make sure you have a window/door open so you can make an easy exit if necessary

- When driving across wet cracks (which sometimes can’t be avoided), make sure your path is as perpendicular to them as possible, rather than being parallel

- Driving on ice can be very dangerous. Try to keep below 15mph at all times. The reason for this speed cap is that when you put a vehicle on floating ice, it puts pressure on the ice, which turns it into a slight bowl shape. When you then drive on the ice, this moving bowl effect generates waves underneath in the water. If the speed of these waves becomes equal with the speed of the vehicle, the ice-sheet deflection is severely increased, and therefore the ice is a lot more likely to break.

- You should attach a long cord to your sled. This makes the sled easier to move and incase of an emergency where someone falls through the ice, you could push them the sled whilst you are holding onto the line.

- Always carry two picks just incase you fall through the ice. The picks should be able to help you get back out quickly.

- If you fall through the ice, and then get picked back out – don’t stand up, roll across the ice in the direction you came to ensure you don’t fall into the ice again.

- Make sure you keep your auger covered because the blades are very sharp and could cut easily.

- You should spray vegetable oil on your shoes and on your auger. This way, snow won’t stick, and you won’t cut yourself trying to get the snow off.

- Make sure you wear spiked shows to ensure you don’t slip or fall on the ice.

- When there are two weights on the ice at the same time, make sure the distance between them is 100x the required minimum thickness of the ice.

- If you have to leave a load on an ice-sheet for an extended period of time, drill a hole near the load and when water starts creeping through the hole, move the load immediately. If you don’t move the load immediately when this happens, within a few days, the load will fall through the ice.