GAMES TO PLAY DURING SLOW BITES

[BojiHawk]

As you can tell, I like to have a good time outdoors.  You don't need hot bites and sleds full of fish to have fun.  So, instead of packing up I normally invent some kind of weird game to pass that mid afternoon slow bite.  So here are a couple...you need some pretty perfect condition for some of them:

Glare ice - 1.75 litre Golf.  You need an 8" auger for best results.  Near your tipups drill a second hole (or just make sure they are marked somehow)  Now, use and empty 1.75 litre booze bottle and fill half full of water.  Now the rules are like shuffle board and golf kind of.  You must "bowl" the bottle across the ice with tipping it over.  Tip over is a 1 stroke penalty and you reshoot from the same spot.  Obviously, you're trying to get to the second hole near the tipup (or marked hole)  2 stroke penalty for hitting tip ups.  Wind is a big factor and you can't believe how far these will slide when you get your technique down.  There is also Bocce version but it takes to long to explain here.

Snow covered ice - Perch Darts.  (you will need 4-6 hard frozen perch)  When you freeze these perch fan their tails out on the ice and when they get frozen, dunk them in the hole and continue to reglaze them until you get a nice thick coating of ice.  Take a rag or towel and tear strips about 18" x 2"....tie this to the perchs tail giving it about 14" long.  Now, take a shovel and make a pile of snow 18" deep and the size of a kiddie pool.  Put a center maker of some kind in the center.  Play same rules as horseshoes.  You need to get back a ways and swing the perch by the rag tail and let it fly like a lawn dart.  You need nice and hard slushy snow so you might have to add some water and slush up your "perch pit".  But they will stick like lawn darts when tossed correctly and people will think you have lost your mind if they happen to figure out what your doing.

Needle Nose Frizbee - Take a regular frizbee.  Use awl on leathermans tool to make small hole in the outer rim.  Take medium treble hook on a short leader and attach to rim of frizbee using that hole - poking it through the hole from the outside and then knotting on the inside works best.  Spread out on the ice.  Take off your gloves.  Play catch with it.  When someone screams out in pain when they catch it, everyone else laughs and yells "Get the needlenose!!!" Pretty fun....

(ok...don't play that last one.  I have just been tossing the idea around - no pun intended.  But it seems to be a game you could get hooked on - pun totally intended)

Now....keep in mind that any time your good time, messes up someone elses good time...these games might not be appropriate around...well....almos t anyone.  So don't be a pest.  And as far as throwing perch...well, they ate just fine and (since they are hydrodynamic) fly very naturally and very well.  The game was a series of "weird events".  I had a perch on a tip up and it was around -3.  If you dropped a fish on the ice, it stuck like velcro.  Well...I decided to hang it from my waist (or put it in my pocket..not smart)..then my pal yelled 'throw me that perch'...at -3 degrees swinging from a length of rag...a perch will freeze solid in 10 minutes in the wind.  So I threw it and it FLEW.  And it was hysterical.  Trust me...they're fish.  If you feel differently...here's an analogy:  Pheasant hunting last week I turned some MN guys onto some birds...as he held a nice 2 year spurred bird he says "God...that's a healthy bird!!....  Gorgeous"  Well....I think we covered respect for animals.  The dead bird in his hand was "georgeous and healthy".  The one he sent hot lead through, pursued by dogs and had it's neck wrung by me.  Trust me, if I'm a perch (dead one), I would like to at least be the center of attention for a while...kind of like any fish on your wall that gets gawked at at parties that was never harvested for any reason other than it's size and there for no ones glory other than yours. (I do glass mount - and have no beef with the real thing)

(reason being for the additions to this post (last paragraph)...some mouth breather told me it was disrespectfful to do that to fish and he admittedly had several mounts from live fish)  Makes sense....if your nuts!   

[RLWagner]

Heres another game to play when the bite is slow:

1. With an eight inch auger, drill a series of holes from shallow to deeper water.

2. Take live bait, place on jig then drop into hole.

3. Slow down your former movements when the bite was fast and furious, but probe the water column.

4. If no luck, move to another hole.

5. The winner is he who figures out how to catch fish when the bite slows down.

6. You may need to relocate to a different area on the ice.

7. Sometimes changing colors, down-sizing jigs or switching bait types can assist you at winning this game.

8. Good luck to all players!

[vermonner]

Needle Nose Frizbee - Take a regular frizbee.  Use awl on leathermans tool to make small hole in the outer rim.  Take medium treble hook on a short leader and attach to rim of frizbee using that hole - poking it through the hole from the outside and then knotting on the inside works best.  Spread out on the ice.  Take off your gloves.  Play catch with it.  When someone screams out in pain when they catch it, everyone else laughs and yells "Get the needlenose!!!" Pretty fun....

Hi
I'm Johnny Knoxville.  Welcome to icefishing Jackass

[marcus]

we play a game called beer bowling     its actually more similar to horeshoes        teams of 2 each have 2 full un opened beers.  you drill 2 holes half way through the ice i dont remember the distance as was taught to me   so we usually go 30 feet apart or there about   you then proceed to roll the beers. 1 point for one in 3 for 2 your opponents can cover you the same as in horeshoes though. Alot of fun ...   oh yeah the good part after 15-20 rolls on  warmer days and can be considerably less on colder days  sometimes 3 or 4 if flags or other things happen .  if you bust your beer open you then have to chug it immediately if you happen to lose it all you have to drink another in play. Surprisingly the ones that bust usually dont spill completely. usually you can count on this to happen alot once one has busted... 

[chuck]

We play bocce ball, but use a tennis ball instead of the little white ball (bolina)
Can't wait to play perch darts.

[fishingabomb2006]

bring your favorite flippin stick from open water season and practice flippin to a hole or fish you got on the ice will kill time pretty easy

[bigchev98]

i know this is mean but if the bites are really really slow we usually pick on one person. when he is out checking his traps you take a snowball and throw it at his trap causing the flag to go up then everyone starts yelling FLAG! and runs to his trap and find nothing. i know this sounds mean by reading it but i swear you will be laughing your behinds off when you do it.

[Mainehazmt]

Can't wait to play perch darts.

why didnt I think of that!

[happy perch fisher]

lol one time i seen people playing dodge ball on the ice

[saskman]

IF you can dodge a perch you can dodge a ball

[hunters08]

Heres another game to play when the bite is slow:

1. With an eight inch auger, drill a series of holes from shallow to deeper water.

2. Take live bait, place on jig then drop into hole.

3. Slow down your former movements when the bite was fast and furious, but probe the water column.

4. If no luck, move to another hole.

5. The winner is he who figures out how to catch fish when the bite slows down.

6. You may need to relocate to a different area on the ice.

7. Sometimes changing colors, down-sizing jigs or switching bait types can assist you at winning this game.

8. Good luck to all players!

[hunters08]

Thats the same game i like to play

[beanhillbuckhunter]

We play this game, it's kind of a cross between drinking horse shoes and shuffleboard.  Bring a shovel if you don't have glare ice.
I put all the rules on this page: http://www.vu.union.edu/~gauglerb/beanhillbuckhunters/hunt/fish/2007/index.html
There's a short video clip there too... It's a blast if you feel like getting blasted.

Look forward to playing perch darts...

[EGR David]

what we play is a game called slippery spot.  out of habit while your sitting waiting for a flag, everyone, i mean everyone, instinctively moves their boots back and forth clearing the snow.  Eventually you get a runway about 30 feet in length.  A person runs and slides the entire length.  The game can take many different forms.  1.  kinda like "horse" where a person does a certain trick and the others have to match his trick.  2.  place a chair at the end of the runway and have people try to sit down in the chair.  3.  roller derby where guys go 3 or 4 at a time and try to push others down.  This last one is done after a few.  creat your own slippery spot version.

[fisheraug4life]

skimmer hockey
---------------

material:2 skimmers and a beer can.

if bites are going slow in the shanty or on the ice grab the skimmers and a beer can and play hockey with it.

NOTE: need to be drunk. example:     

[Buck1985]

These are too funny!  My buddies and I usually just do the snowball fight thing. Or later in the season when the ice is thicker I drive my truck out. If the bite is slow I'll cut a spread for tip downs out in front of the truck and pop a DVD in in my truck and watch that.

[fisheraug4life]

what do ya watch out of curiosity?

[Buck1985]

 Grumpy Old Men is usually the first choice, followed usually by some other funny movie examples: Blue Collar Comedy Tour, Ron White You Can't Fix Stupid, Robin Hood Men In Tights and so on so forth, maybe even some of the animated movies, depends on what everyone wants to watch, I tell'em to bring movies with if we're drivin out and the fishin may be slow

[SLAYERFISH]

I never play games-If the fishing is slow I keep moving and drilling. try diff baits,lures,etc. Never stop.

[Joser06]

I played perch darts last winter too, another good fish to use are pickerel!

[BojiHawk]

yeah..can't go wrong with the perch darts.

I'm just hoping to have 3" of ice by the weekend...sick of pheasant hunting...I think I might actually be getting in shape.

[Joser06]

HAHAHA yeah, you don't want to get in shape. thinking about drilling a 4 inch deep hole in the ice and maybe playing perch golf or something, hey what the heck right? something to kill time in between flags

[Rice]

I like all of these..but the one most rememberable was the **The run and jump on sled thats on ice**sorry not for the old timer....Clear off 25yards 0f ice. ...set childs sled @ start of runway..run at speed of your choice. ...jump on sled ....and fly,,,,,sometimes!!!!!!!!!mark your spot,,,Next...whats fun about this sport you ask ??kinda like nascar.Just waiting for a wreck!!  

[Joser06]

last year we had a small fold out chair that we would run full speed and land on the chair on your belly and slide across glare ice. by no means safe but fun

[sticks]

if it gets slow we usually play alot of pratical jokes on each other.  anything from rigging a jiggin hole with a can of raveolie's so that when using the fish finder it appears that there is a fish on following the lure.  Which is really fun when the victim (in this case hasn't caught a touge on slowbago in years) starts hootin and hollarin cause he things he may have a trophy fish on the end of his line only to find out he has a nice prepared meal on the end of his line.

Occasionally someone will bring a pellet gun and misteriously tip-ups start goin up but nothing is wrong on the bait end of it. 

both are kinda cruel but when the fishing is slow there is not much else to do

[4cator]

Heres another game to play when the bite is slow:

1. With an eight inch auger, drill a series of holes from shallow to deeper water.

2. Take live bait, place on jig then drop into hole.

3. Slow down your former movements when the bite was fast and furious, but probe the water column.

4. If no luck, move to another hole.

5. The winner is he who figures out how to catch fish when the bite slows down.

6. You may need to relocate to a different area on the ice.

7. Sometimes changing colors, down-sizing jigs or switching bait types can assist you at winning this game.

8. Good luck to all players!


Now thats my game

[Baiter]

I like playing practical jokes on my buddies while the fishing is slow.  When nobody is looking wrap the handle of your ice skimmer your buddies line, drop down hole.  Wait for your buddy to notice his rod is bent, then sit back and have a laugh. The ice skimmer dances in the water was he brings it up making it feel kind of like a fish.  Have gotten more than one person with this.  My buddy thought he had a hog on, he still isn't talking to me.

Also, kind of mean, but drill a hole outside the hut so as no one notices.  Reach in and gaff your buddies line.  Then go running off while tugging on the line.  Feels like a monster fish.  Have a buddy who we did this two years ago too.  He still talks about that fish that got away.  Just can't bring myself to tell him it was me pullin on his line.

[davieb78]

i know this is mean but if the bites are really really slow we usually pick on one person. when he is out checking his traps you take a snowball and throw it at his trap causing the flag to go up then everyone starts yelling FLAG! and runs to his trap and find nothing. i know this sounds mean by reading it but i swear you will be laughing your behinds off when you do it.

This is also one of my beloved ice games!

[dvsbruce]

Here's one I like!

[perchpunk22]

you should ask them to play a round of perch darts with you