Redrilling old holes

[wisicefishinnut]

A lot of people talk about it and say it, but why is redrilling old holes bad for your auger.  I have an ice shack and have to do it lots of times.  When the ice gets ove 4 inches thick, it's hard to chip a nice round hole.

[bigredonice]

i know that it is OK for a nils auger, however i am not sure about other auger designs

[wisicefishinnut]

I forgot to mention, that I have a Jiffy 10"

[love2fishnhuntNH]

i've done it w/ my jiffy legend, 10", that thing is a tank, i love it

[cid]

So is redrilling really bad for the power augers?
Ive been told that only certain kinds of bits will work
never tried to redrill with mine cause I just use a portable.
Dont understand why it would be bad for the drill

[Oldfart]

The ice re-freezes uneven. You catch hard ice, then soft, then hard, then air................eve n if the auger makes it,it could catch and hurt you, real bad. If your portable, just move over 12" from yesterdays honeyhole and drill again. 8)

[billditrite]

im with cid!  ice  is ice and my auger loves it

[Jbarker]

On most occasions the ice that forms in old holes freezes harder than the rest of the lake.cutting through the harder ice the auger has a greater chance of catching an edge or dulling your blades. In the case of a permanant shanty you are only redrilling a few inches depending on how often u use your shack. This should be no problem but if the hjole freezes more than that you could abuse your auger and your wrists.

[iceintheveins]

Swamp Thing and oldfart are right, chisel

[grumpymoe]

redrilling the holes in the shanty are murder on your arms. its not bad if you have a good cold snap and it freezed most of the way, but my good old chisel cleans it out pretty quick.sure beats doing the whirlybird up close to the wall

[PERCHPULLER]

redrilling with a hand auger can ding up the outer edges of the blades and make it cut hard and no one wants that as far as a power auger hang on and hope for the best

[Muskie Matt]

Redrilling is a definate no no. Ask anyone who works on augers....they will tell you the same. It can actually throw off the "alignment" and you'll only be cutting with one blade. Can you get away with it?.....absolutly, but why bother? Move a foot over and redrill. But I'm not sure on why you would have to? I fished this past Sunday -11 degrees without the wind and only experienced a small amount of shrinkage to the hole. I guess that's my case for a 10" drill. I also use covers and never have to redrill. But if I had to I wouldn't drill in the same hole.

[Jbarker]

I don't know if any of you do this already but when you chisel out your hole in the shanty and you don't get your full hole. bring a pot and boil some water. works great at reopening holes and keeps the slush in the holes from forming.

[buzzbomb]

I know some guys get away with it with some types of power augers, but with a hand auger I've found that you can't ususally get all the way through anyway.  Also, any dirt at all will dull your blades, even the little bit of dust that's blown in off the fields, or the bit of crud that fell out from under someones truck and is hidden by snow or ice.  So if you find an old hole frozen in just leave it or break it out with a spud because you don't know what the last guy dumped in there.

[acsacmboy]

move  about a foot or two over and redrill. best not to re drill thru the same hole.

[smeltshack]

Tried to redrill a few holes last year with my hand auger and i could puncture the ice just to get water up through it but could not get it to go clean through so i had to drill a complete new hole.