home made tip-up flags

[cracked_ice]

I have just finished building a couple of tip ups...I was just wondering what people think about flag length / color.
I used scavenged surveyors flags.  I had the choice of blue or orange.  Obviously orange is normally more visible, but on the ice I think blue might be ok.  Also, my flags ended up being only about 6" long...is this long enough do you think?   I am obviously fairly new to tip up fishing, so I appreciate any feedback.  I do think it will be very cool to use equipment I built myself, and the engineering/fabrication process was a  total kick in the butt!  Will post pics soon hopefully, going to stagecoach res. in colorado on monday to try out my handiwork.

note: this was cheaper and I didn't have to upset the wife by spending more money on fishing equipment...I do enough of that already:)

[Pasquatch]

I'd love to see the pics, 6" flags are larger than most of the regular flags, I'd use orange, ice is blue...

[cracked_ice]

I probably didn't make this as clear as I could have.  The shaft of the flag is about 6" long.  The flag itself is about 2" by 3".  As for ice being blue    I am hoping there is enough snow on top that everything is white.  But I agree that orange would be better...The orange flags I found were in pretty rough shape so I did not use them, but I could probably splurge and spend the money on some surveyors flagging (probably a whopping 50 cents).  Luckily, I made the flag setup easily interchangable.

Thanks for the input,
cracked_ice

[Pasquatch]

Oh, gotcha, 6", I guess it would work, if you have good eyesight, and aren't very far away. When I'm jigging for lakers, I can get maybe a 1/8 mile away, its hard to see HT polars flags then... they're about 1 foot high...

[TroutFishingBear]

Crackedice, the orange would've been a better choice, but stagecoach should have plenty of snow on the ice because of the storms the past 3-4 days. The blue should work fine.

[icefishmaine]

 you can pick up a sheet of felt at wal-mart for like 20 cents. its enough to make 5 flags and then some if you mess up.

[WARRIOR_ON_ICE]

I have purchased tip-ups over the years with various color flags of dark red, medium orange, and fluorescent hot pink. The fluorescent hot pink wins the visibility contest easily in my opinion.

[Mr.Esox]

Blue works on a snowy day.

[Hard_H2O]

The shaft of the flag is about 6" long.  The flag itself is about 2" by 3". 

That seems pretty short and the flag as 2" x 3" is smaller than I personally would like. Look at a fabric store for some nylon. Comes in many colors and weights. I have seen them made out of duct tape and the plastic caution tape you can buy at home improvement stores like Menards or Home Depot.

Here are some you can purchase or use for reference:

http://www...com/TipupFlags.htm

http://www.netway.com/~flyshop/catalog/icefish.htm

http://www.mmdsales.com/download%20forms/mmdflaginfo05.pdf

http://shop2.sportsmansguide.com/cb/cb.asp?a=36581