ice rods and reels

I'm sure all you north country boys have your favorites looking to buy 3 rod reel combos 1 for gills and crappie one for walleye and one more for a back up (all around). Any help would be great. Would like to stay in the $100-$150 range.

thanks

Go online for Northwoods Wholesale.com They have a lot of stuff in that store. Or, if you want a better quality go to Franks Great Outdoors, Franks carries a better quality of fishing tackle. I shop both places..

Hard to beat the HT Ice Blue rods for panfish. Inexpensive, tough and ultra sensitive. No need for a float or spring. Any of the small frame Pflueger reels have great drags and will protect light line if you stick a bass or pike.

For real cheap better go with the HT icelander for the panfish, for better quality at a bit more money, the Jason Mitchell meat stick has a better noodle tip and overall better quality. For backup and walleye rods the St Croix Premiers are a very good value with St Croix quality into the bargain and still cheaper than the Mitchell line. The Jason Mitchell reels would provide very good service on all three rods. My personal favorite reels are the old style black Shakespeare Alphas, but you can't get them anymore by themselves. For a bargain priced reel the Shakespeare Prius isn't too bad though.

You can get all weights of the Mitchell rods in a rod and reel combo and still stay pretty much in your overall budget. If you are saying 100-150 per combo then step all the way up to Thorne and put Pfluegers on them. It is real hard to beat Pflueger drags but the cheap Shakespeares come close as does the Mitchell reel.

Thanks for all the input not sure we are even going to get ice this year still using the boat

The north country cadilac rods are customs built by Thorne Bros in Blaine, Minnesota. The rod and a reel will ring up to around 130.00...150.00 depending on rod model and reel quality.

Try thornebros.com

Ht and others like fenwick and frabil are all Jap stuff and you will end up with exactly what you pay for. Thorne uses American made blanks, guides and are crafted here on American soil. Spendy, but well worth the investment. For panfish and crappies I suggest a 28" Power Noodle. You need no spring or float of any kind with this super sensitive rod. You can get the noodle in 24" and 30" models as well.

X 2 on Thorne Bros. Very good rods!

HT Ice Blues is all I use now for panfish, no 'eyes around but use Ice Blues 44" Heavies for Pike. 18" -24" ULs in the Scout and 48"ULs for hole hopping. Inexpensive Zebco Bill Dance Crappie series reels. The higher end stuff that's important is the line and jigs. ASSO Micron 3 in 2# for all Pannies and use mainly Wolfram Tungsten jigs and plastics

Check out Cabelas outlet. Saw they have some on sale pretty cheap. Don't know anything about ice fishing but look like they would work to me.

Another new rod that is showing some potential as a great rod. is the new Team Northland Ice Rod. 100% solid graphite, single foot aluminum oxide guides, adjustable soft touch reel seats, they come in 7 custum specie specific actions. Saw them at a whole sale show for retailers. Very sensetive. At $29.99 they should not break the bank. But remember some guys only hobby is ice fishing so if they choose to buy a Thorn Bros custom built rod they should be allowed too. The same goes or those buying cheap HT stuff. If thats what you want have at it. The main thing is catching fish and having fun while you do it.

kinda following what some of the other fellas said i use the ice blues . and they can be found at www.fishusa.com thats where i got mine they right at 9-10 dollors a peice and i use cortland fly reels on mine got them at walmart for 10 dollors a peice so i say i have 60 bucks in three nice setups and catch panfish walleye with no problems .
and also am biting the bit to get my ice on but seems like it's gonna be a late year if at all here in western md it's a cool 55 degrees here right now and the snow is melting and not a hint of ice on dcl.
best of luck ,
Scott

You'll definitely get what you pay for anymore, what with all the Chinese junk on the market. And make no bones about it, everything made today for a company like HT and Northland comes in a Chinese shipping container. Jason Mitchell and St. Croix ice rods all come from China now. The blanks that Thorne Bros use in the rods thay they build in their store are American made and are made by the areospace industry where tolerances are closely measured.

I read a little rant on Jason Mitchell rods in another board where the guy bought one of the better rods and when he opened the tube the rod came in the tip and an inch of the road fell off before he even got the rod in his hands. In another post a St. Croix rod had guides facing three different directions....new, right out of the tube. Ain't ever going to happen with a custom rod.

i've heard such stories of that stuff going on tom no doubt but not wanting to start an argument or anything but i fish on a shoestring budget so with that being said i have made my own rods from others i have found and have had people give me tips and such from which i have built them i made my own flip over sled from a bedliner and some tarps i had here and duct tape . so if i can enjoy myself and buy a new rod that will only cost me 10 dollors ill take just as good as care of it as i would a 100 dollor rod and most likly it will last the same with out the big name . like i said not starting anything just proving a point that you don't always have to have name brand top of the line stuff . heck ive fished beside some guys with 2-3 hundred dollor rigs and held my own with a zebco 33 so i can't say money or the best has anything to do with it .

sorry for the rant just wanted to get that off my chest cause the best don't always work or win .

Scott

I hear ya Scott. No sweat here. I tell people to fish with the best they can afford. Everyone has to find their own level of satisfaction. I hate to see people stick out 20.00 a couple times a season because what they are buying won't hold up.

To be honest, a simple rod with a good spring bobber does everything a rod costing $90.00 will do. Its not really the rod, its the spring that gets the fish. Thorne Bros sells a spring that they developed for 6.25 that beats any spring I have ever used to death. And that little spring can be adapted or retro-fitted to any rod easily.

Amen. Not everybody can afford to drive a Lexus or even wants to. I wouldn't dare even park one in on the street in my neighborhood . :) My garage is about model A size and it wouldn't fit there anyway to stretch an analogy a bit.

I have a couple of Thorne Brothers Power Noodles and there is no question about their quality. But I will not get another. Out of my price range these days. I pretty much duplicated the action and the function on a Jann Microlite blank and spare parts which I gave to a buddy. He outfished me with it, too. Looks like I may have to do another, since the movers he recently hired broke it during the move. That was the 22" blank which I gave the additional backbone and some extra length to by overgluing a tightly fitting portion of a broken ultralight tubular rod out to the first guide which then also speeds up the very soft tip into very much the same ultra soft noodle action of the PowerNoodle and adds the firmness I like to the butt, especially when one uses the very light single foot fly rod guides and their microlite tip on it. He held an adult musky on that rod with two pound copolymer line one time last winter for nearly 10 minutes; so that set up has enough guts for any panfish, and enough sensitivity to show the softest bite, too. I keep a couple of extra Jann's 22" Microlite blanks around in fact just in case I feel inspired to mess around with making another.

I reach for the PowerNoodles first, all other factors being equal, but swap them out pretty much interchangeably with four or five other much cheaper sticks. It aint the stick so much as the presentation and the ability to detect the takes. Like CTom also says you can also get that with a spring bobber.

Just do not buy the cheaper units sight unseen. Their quality varies dramatically and some of their components are pure trash which are CTom's main points, I think, and ones I agree with wholeheartedly. They ship a lot of lemons. I find shopping the bargain bins and price point product lines to be a lot of fun though, being a bargain-hunter at heart. I have no especial problem with replacing trash guides or handles either. A lot of that level rods are not really fishable right of the shelf, but many of them can be "upgraded" pretty cheaply with a little effort, providing the blank is good enough and you know what you are looking for, and are willing to invest the little bit of extra effort.

Something else that should be noted here is that the upper tier states of the mid-west...MN, MI, WI, ND....see everything that gets thrust onto the market simply because we are the backbone of the ice fishing industry. The NE states down as far as NY and Va are yet another area of "the big push". If its new and/or improved, these area's distributor shows will have it on hand for the shop owners to view. In my opinion, there is one common denominator to all of the inexpensive things out there....China. Thorne Bros is but one of a few custom rod companies that cater to the ice anglers, providing them with a better grade of fishing rods. Reels are another debate altogether.

Everybody and their ugly brother has a reel called an "ice reel". LOTS of these dink, spine-less reels have a starting price of about $7-$8. Many come attached to their equally lame rod cousins for a couple bucks more. In the case of reels, you definitely will get what you pay for. Shimano, Pflueger, Tica all offer outstanding reels in the mid-price range in spinning reels. Okuma has a nice 2/3 weight fly reel that has become the rage in my neck of the woods when spooled up with a backing, then some quality line.This Okuma reel will set a person back about 55 scheckles.Here again, you get what you pay for. My thoughts are that people should fish with the very best that they can afford as mentioned earlier. What is best for me may not be the best for others, but i am not going to judge a fellow angler by his tackle. If he's good with it, that's what counts. But where I have a problem is at the store. Why should these places cater to companies that do not insist on basic quality control? Customers deserve more than simple junk. The only way to combat this trend to shortchange the public's buying buck is to look at equipment that has some true value. If someone spends 60 dollars in the fall for 4 rod/reel combos and has one working unit left in the spring when the gear gets stowed away, why not look at something better next fall even if the cost means you only get one rig?

And another option is one that No1son has suggested at....build a rod or two of your own. Those Microlite blanks that he mentions are 6 bucks apiece. The handle and guide set with a tip will cost another 10. $15 for a new rod. Pretty cheap, but still better than what the stores will offer at that price.
There are a ton of options, and not all of them have to be wallet breakers. The problems we see up here have answers, but you guys at the lower edge of the ice belt probably won't even see some of the quality we do.