Published on February 24th, 2018 | by The Iceman

The end of ice fishing season is the best time to buy ice fishing gear!

Sadly, the end of ice fishing season is upon us. At least for me and my location anyway. There is undoubtedly still some safe ice around somewhere, but it’s all open water around me. This weekend I’ll clean up all of my stuff and start the sad but necessary task of putting it away.

The battery will be removed from the Ion auger and the battery of my Marcum M1 will be put away for storage. The ice rods will be put up along with the pop up tent and most of the jigs, though some of my reels and ice lures that can be used in open water will be kept out for spring trout fishing.

On the positive side, the end of ice fishing season has historically been the best time to buy ice fishing equipment. That’s because stores want to liquidate their ice fishing stocks to get whatever money they can and prepare for the upcoming and probably more lucrative open water fishing season.

Spring is the best time to buy gear

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You might think summer would be the best time to buy ice fishing gear, but it’s not. By then most of the stock is sold and whatever is left is the stuff no one else wanted even at sale prices. Now is the time to stock up!

Like a lot of people who ice fish, I am a bit of a “gear head.” Partly that’s because I think about ice fishing year round and like to at least look at and shop for ice fishing gear if I can’t actually get on the ice. Another part of me wants to try out everything available to see what works and what doesn’t. I’m sure at least a small part of me is poisoned by the consumer society we live in too, but I’d rather drill deep into the ice than get too deep into that!

Nowadays things are moving more toward an online model. I don’t have to tell you that since you’re reading this very post online! But one thing about internet stores is that theoretically they shouldn’t be as worried about clearing out stock. They have virtual stores on their websites which can be as big as they need them to be. They don’t have to worry about floor space and displays. On the other hand I guess they still need to thing about storage space and turnover, so that would explain why even most of the online retailers put ice fishing gear on sale right about now.

Where to buy ice fishing gear online

Amazon continues to be my go to place for buying pretty much anything. It’s often cheaper than other places, I can trust the company and they offer fast and free shipping on all of my orders over twenty five bucks. They also have a money back guarantee on everything you order from them. That’s really hard to beat. For some reason people still haven’t really caught on to Amazon as a source of fishing supplies. With lithium powered augers like this Landworks being sold for half of what some others charge I don’t think that will last for long.

Over at Fish USA they already have stuff like the Flash Bang Spoon and Ice Armor mittens on sale.

The Bass Pro Shops website is incredibly disorganized and muddled, with purses and wallets appearing in the “ice fishing” section of their online store. But even there I have seen a few pieces of ice fishing equipment on sale there after looking around.

Although Cabela’s is now owned by Bass Pro Shops they have a much better website. Their ice fishing section contains things actually used for ice fishing, and at the moment I’m writing this nearly all of it seems to be on sale. Augers, shelters, clothing and lures are all marked down. I’m going to stop writing so I can order some of the stuff there before it is all gone!

Tags: ice fishing tips