I am planning on ice fishing for brook trout in the morning.. That can be a very slow day as they do not feed as well as the warm water spieces do for the most part.. If not much ice a good sharp ice chisel will do the trick .. That is most likely what I will be using tomorrow with around 6 inches of ice it is easy to carry. What I first used starting out was some fishing line, hooks, sinkers and a few cards.. I used to carry an axe to cut a few alders and stick the alders in the snow and ice made from cutting my ice hole. I would tie my line on the end of the alder that I would place leaning over the ice hole. Drop my line down with the hook and sinker attached to the depth I wanted.. Then tie the line on and around half way down ( from the alder to the ice ) tie half a card to the line so the wind can blow it a little to help keep the hole from freezing up to quickly. We call this set-up a withe but you will need to watch the end of the alder for bounce when a fish has hit it. When carrying the line we normall have the line wrapped around a small piece of wood with hooks and sinkers already tied on. One for each set-up. Once tied on the bush we would wrap what is left on the piece of wood around the bottom of the bush.. This makes for easy carrying and easier to set-up once on the ice. That is the cheap way of getting started on ice fishing.. We use live bait up here on most all our tip-ups.. I have had a hard time up here with bringing some of those white perch up through an eight inch hole so I am using mostly nothing but a ten inch auger. I do use a six inch gas auger for brook trout fishing at times though as it is easy to carry.. As well as most of the brookies are slim enough to come up the hole once started..

Up here it is illegal to sell any fresh water fish you catch.

Good Luck to you..