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Big holes for the optimists, small ones for the pessimists!!!
As far as a 10" auger goes I think the times you accidentally step in the hole will far outnumber the times you struggle with getting your fish started in an 8" hole.
I have never had a problem getting a fish up a 8" hole. Even the 40"+ pike I caught the other day came right through it. Plus I take my young kids with and having a big hole worries me.
A 10" hole definitely isn't necessary but they are nice. I use an 8" hole will get 95% of the fish caught around here through it.
once you fish a 10 its hard to go down in size.
I've had a 10" for years, and still use it on occassion when I'm ONLY pike fishing. However, I purchased a 6" last year to make things faster when searching for perch. I didn't find it 'hard to go down in size' at all... Different auger sizes for different purposes. My reasoning for 6" for perch was speed. 10" auger takes too long to drill through 10"+ of ice. A 10" has to cut 78sq inches each pass, whereas a 6" only has to cut 28sq inches. So my 6" auger gets through the ice 2.78 times faster than my 10" auger. It speeds things up quite a bit when searching for roaming schools of perch.