Fish-Hawk.Net

Hey guys,

Does anybody here have a lead on where I could get a auger but that drills 3” wide ? I’ve been looking around and cabelas has the “jiffy ice scout” that drills 2 1/2” holes but they are out of stock.

My reason is I want something to be able to just quickly drill a hole and drop the transducer into to check bottom on the fly instead of waisting battery juice with my 8” auger before I find a spot I want to sit for a period of time.

Thanks in advance guys

You can just shoot your sonar through the ice. Clear away any snow, try and find nice clear ice that is smooth, pour a bit of water on the ice so your transducer has good contact with the ice and read your sonar. It is not as good as drilling but decent enough. You will be hard pressed finding a 3" auger I think. The other option is just carry another battery.

Good luck.

Like Jim said the transducer will shoot through the ice fine but there can't be an air gap. Here's what I do. With my 9" Jiffy I drill only a 1" hole just to make a bit of a shallow bowl. I carry a gallon ziplock with around 4" of windshield washer fluid and rest that in the hole and hold the ducer in the liquid. All I'm looking for is depth while i search for structure so I don't care about any noise at the top of the signal. Work well and saves a pile of drilling, specially late season with thick ice.
Cheers

Wow guys , thanks for the tip, I would have never thought of that idea haha, I’ll deffinetly give it a go, going to head out for a full day in search for some walleye in frontinac county this Saturday.

smitty55 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 16, 2022 10:27 pm Like Jim said the transducer will shoot through the ice fine but there can't be an air gap. Here's what I do. With my 9" Jiffy I drill only a 1" hole just to make a bit of a shallow bowl. I carry a gallon ziplock with around 4" of windshield washer fluid and rest that in the hole and hold the ducer in the liquid. All I'm looking for is depth while i search for structure so I don't care about any noise at the top of the signal. Work well and saves a pile of drilling, specially late season with thick ice.
Cheers

Smitty... sometimes you and I think way too much alike! The only difference is that i used a vaccum-seal bag to hold my liquid as i find I can get a whole season out of the bag without it tearing (Thicker plastic) yet still doesnt seem to affect the signal at all.

I can make it through about 24 inches of good ice and even tell if there is weed or not. White ice sucks though, but you can usually still get a pretty reasonable reading.

In the summer you can use the same cushion on the bottom of your boat to use an ice transducer without mouting anything on the hull. I have done this with aluminum boats and plastic canoe.