Ice fishing doesn’t have to be cold! Here are some ways to stay warm on the lake

RAPID CITY, S.D. — By nature, ice fishing is usually a chilly experience, but it doesn’t have to be with proper clothing and shelter. In fact, ice armor and shelters can help anglers stay out on the ice longer and on some of the coldest days of the year.

Clothing

“It all begins and ends with clothing and how you dress,” says Jim Bussell, Pro-Staffer with Cold Snap Outdoors. “So a good base layer, lots of layers, suits like the ice armor from Clam Outdoors.”

Shelters

“There are a number of great shelters on the market- some are insulated, some are uninsulated. Some are what are called hub style shacks or shelters, others are flip over style,” says Bussell. 

A hub style shelter packs up into a bag, which can be placed in a sled and moved to wherever you’d like to set it up.

“Where those really shine is if you’re going to fish in one spot for most of the day and you’re not going to move around a lot, you can sit inside those,” Bussell adds.

The slightly more mobile option is a flip-over shelter, in which the shelter is attached to the sled.

“Those set up very easily. They’re very warm. You can put all of your gear inside them and pull them across the ice either by hand or with a four-wheeler or ATV.”

Heaters

If you opt for an ice shelter, a heater may help in keeping the inside warm.

“The little buddy heaters are powered off of a one pound propane bottle and they actually provide a lot of heat, and you have the big buddy heaters that run off of large propane cylinders, and those produce a ton of heat,” Bussell says.