Sound above and below the ice

[TheCrittaC]

I was jigging a rattlebait today and couldn't believe that I could hear it from my chair when the bait was 35 feet under the water. Usually, I have a speaker going with either talk radio or music. I've seen fish on the electronics scatter when a machine goes by, but that is obviously direct contact with the ice. Does anyone abide by a code of radio silence when they're jigging so they don't spook the fish?

[PerchMan45]

For me it all depends on what type of fish I am targeting. Walleye, trout/salmon I will try to make minimal noise including turning off my cell phone ringer and leaving the sled in one place.

Perch, bass, and panfish we will talk loudly and drag the sleds around to tend to tip ups. Play music, whatever. I’ve always been told that perch like noise.

[Guinea]

Now that you mention it, it was eerily quiet today.

I'm thinking like Perchman. I think the salmonids tend to spook and run, where the warm water guys  get agitated and move around more. I honestly have no idea what I'm talking about, but that's been my perception.

[Ruimachado]

I try to be conscious of movement and sound if jigging shallower than 15ft, seen lots of times something falls on the ice and the 3 or 4 marks on the screen disappear, extra shallow I try to close all windows on the flip over and make sure I don't hover the hole at any time, now if we talking 30ft plus basins I don't really take any precautions, usually will have some music going.

[MadSledder]

I base it a bit more on the water I am on: popular place - lots of boats in the summer lots of machines and people making noise n the winter I don't worry about it much. Quite lake where they arent used to disturbance then I try to keep it down a bit. Also try to stay quite in shallow water more than deep.

[isaaccarlson]

I try not to make noise on purpose when ice fishing, but noise is made none the less.  Augers are loud, sleds are loud, walking is loud, and yelling FLAG is loud.  Pike seem to like some vibration, like vehicles idling or a radio, or stuff like that.  We were pike fishing with tip ups a few weeks ago and had the truck running.  Every time the cooling fan would kick in a flag would go up, no joke.  We tried shutting it down and starting it and that kind of worked too, but not like the cooling fan, that was magic.  I have driven near/past tip ups and had them go off with a fish.  Walking around doesn't seem to do as much.

As far as the rattle baits, I have rattle traps and I can hear them clear as day through the aluminum boat.  I can hear the strike before I feel it.  I can also feel the pike following a few inches behind the bait because the weight on the rod is less.  I usually give a good jerk, like the bait is trying to get away, or maybe go into a turn, and they do the rest.

I have had pike hit a spoon right next to the trolling motor and a friend of mine says his dad used to run the boat in circles on a slow day to get pike to bite.  He swears it worked.  I have held position in fast water/rapids with an outboard while fishing with a friend and we have pulled fish after fish out of the water not more than 20 feet from us while making a ton of noise.

[alexg425]

I tend to think that some noise will attract fish, but not really make them bite. But who knows, anything can happen.

When I set tip ups in shallow water, it tends to take a while for the flag to go off. I try to minimize walking around tip ups that are like 10-15 feet or less.

I would think that the noise will draw the fish in for a second, but if there is no lure or bait to bite there they will be gone a second later. Fish move around pretty fast.

I had good luck with the rattle kastmaster this year for calling in perch/bass walleye. I have ripped a rattle bait up high to call in lake trout and I ussually mark a few but also haven't had any bites working it aggressively like that. Mostly I would call them in with a big noisy bait and then bait&switch to a spoon or something