Tips and Tactics for Ice..

[chopper30]

On the afternoon before I know it is going to freeze hard I have turned the pump on in my field to keep water moving and just turned it off when I got there the next morning.

[Unkljohn]

Acouple of years ago when we had a big freeze like we're supposed to get this weekend, I went with my bro-in-law, who has a mallard machine. We walked around in the hole, breaking ice the best we could, then he hooked up that thing, and the hole we had broken up just grew and grew. Every duck that flew by that morning wanted into that hole, because it was the only one that was open. Think I'll call him now and see if he wants to go with me this weekend
JT

[mallardhunter]

Ice is my friend. Almost always, when I hunt in icy conditions, I kill ducks.
Dealing with ice is a problem.

Ice too thin to break into large chunks is the worse. In water deep enough to run a boat, simply break out a hole downwind or downriver from your spot. If possible, approach the blind from that direction so you can use the boat lane. Run your boat in ever-widening circles to break up the ice; then use your boat to "herd" the ice into that downwind/downstream/boat lane to keep it out of your hole. Same tactic can be used with a boat with thicker ice.

In shallow water, that skim ice can be extremely difficult to clear. The seine net mentioned earlier works, but, as noted, is a lot of work (more than it would appear) and requires at least two people. If the water is hip deep or so, you can stand in the hole, and rock your knees to "swoosh" out a lot of ice, but this doesn't break out a very large hole unless several folks are coordinating the effort. A mallard machine, trolling motor or pump would work great, but I've never had that luxury!

If the ice is thick enough to break into large chunks, shoving it under the ice works great. All you gotta do is get it started, often by having one guy stand on the edge and push down gently with his axe until it starts under, while another one shoves. Alternately, you can swoosh water on top of the ice at the edge you want to push under, then shove. Standing crops, like milo, corn, or weeds, etc. can make this techinique much more difficult, and often the ice pops back out. No real fix for that that I have ever found, other than "do it again". We use axes to chop it into huge chunks (as big as you can move) before trying to shove it under. One year, we had to chop out four inches of ice daily to hunt, and we cut out the hole in one big slab, and moved it under with a couple of guys in the water to coordinate the shoving while one guy stood on the edge of the ice pushing it down with his axe.