Rattle reels: how to fish a second hole without watching it

What a rattle reel is, and why it is not a tip-up

A rattle reel is a spool on a bracket, mounted on the wall or roof of an ice shelter, with line running from it down into a hole in the floor. There is no rod. A fish takes the bait, pulls line, the spool turns, and the rattle inside it makes a noise you can hear across the shelter. You grab the line and hand-line the fish in.

That is a different machine from a tip-up, and the difference is where you are.

If you fish from a sled on open ice and walk between holes, the rattle reel is the wrong product and our tip-ups page is the one to read. If you sit in a hub or a permanent house and cut more holes than you can hold rods over, this is the answer.

Check your line limit before you buy anything

A rattle reel only makes sense if you are allowed to fish a second line, and that is a state-by-state rule rather than a national one. Some states allow one line through the ice, some allow two, some allow more in named waters, and several change the number by county or by season.

We are not going to print a number for your state, because that is exactly the sort of figure that is wrong by the time you read it. Check your current state regulations before you spend anything - it is the one piece of research on this page we cannot do for you, and buying three rattle reels for a one-line state is an expensive way to find out.

The four things that decide which one to buy

Criteria first, because the reels themselves are more alike than the marketing suggests. All of them are a spool, a bracket and a noise.

1. How it mounts, and what that costs. This is the decision that actually sets your budget, and it is the one buried furthest down the listing. The Clam reel mounts to a ClamLock baseplate, which is a separate purchase. That is not a criticism of the system - a baseplate standard means one mounting surface takes a rattle reel today and a rod holder or a cup holder later - but it does mean a $59.99 reel is a $75 purchase, and the second one is cheaper than the first only if you already own the plate.

2. Whether the tension is adjustable. Tension is what stops a lively minnow from running line all night and what stops a cautious walleye from feeling the spool and letting go. Clam publishes an adjustable tensioning system; Eskimo publishes nothing either way. If a reel does not say, assume it is fixed.

3. Whether you will actually hear it. A rattle is a mechanical sound competing with a propane heater, a generator, conversation and the wind on a fabric shelter. In a one-person hub you will hear it. In a four-person house with the heater running you may not, and that is what the $5 LED indicator is for.

4. What line goes on it. The most-skipped decision and the one most likely to cost you fish. See below.

Rattle reel line is a different product, and it matters

The instinct is to spool a rattle reel with whatever is on the bench - leftover mono or old braid. Both are the wrong answer for the same reason: memory.

Line sitting on a small-diameter spool in the cold takes a set. When you drop it down the hole it hangs in coils rather than straight, and a bait on coiled line does two bad things - it sits higher than you think it does, and the coils absorb the first few inches of a take, so the spool does not turn and the reel never rattles.

Clam publishes its rattle reel line as a fly-style line built for rattle reels and tip-ups that comes off the spool straight for a vertical presentation, and as tangle-resistant specifically for running multiple sets or fishing overnight. That is the problem described from the other end. It is a thicker, limper line than you would fish on a rod, which is also what makes it comfortable to hand-line - braid at the same strength cuts cold fingers.

Clam does not publish a pound test for it, which is a real gap on a line sold for predators. Seventy-five feet is the published length, which is plenty for almost all freshwater ice and not enough for deep lake trout water. You still want a leader: our leader page covers the principle, and our wire leader page covers the pike case, which on a dead set with a big bait is a real one.

Setting one up

Mount it high and back from the hole. High enough that the line drops cleanly without touching the edge of the hole, and far enough back that you do not walk into it. A line resting on ice at the hole edge will freeze to it, and then the reel cannot turn.

Set the depth by counting. With no rod and no line counter, depth is whatever you can reproduce. Measure one arm-span of line as you pull it off, count the pulls to bottom, then come up a known number. Writing the number on the shelter wall is not a joke - it is how people fish rattle reels consistently.

Set the tension to the bait, not to the fish. Just enough that a lively minnow cannot turn the spool on its own. Watch it for five minutes before you trust it.

Give the fish line before you pull. The reel rattling is the take, not the hookset. Hand-lining a fish on a dead set means pulling with your hands against no drag at all, so the only thing protecting a light line is how fast you let it slide. This is why the heavier, limper line is the right line.

Keep the hole open. An unattended hole in an unheated corner skims over, and a skimmed hole is a frozen line. Our ice gift page makes the case for a skimmer as the most-used piece of ice equipment nobody buys, and a second set is exactly where that shows up.

What goes on the end

Rattle reels are a live-bait presentation almost everywhere they are used, because the whole point is a bait that works while you ignore it. A jig does nothing on a dead line; a minnow does.

A single hook through the back of a shiner or a sucker, enough weight to hold it down, and a leader. Our ice rigs page covers the hook, weight and leader combinations that work under the ice, and our live bait page covers keeping the bait alive long enough to matter - which in a heated shelter is a different problem from a bucket on the ice.

For what to target with it: a dead set with a big bait beside you is a walleye and pike presentation more than a panfish one, and our panfish against walleye page covers why those two ways of fishing pull in opposite directions.

Who should skip this entirely

Anyone fishing outside a shelter. A sound alert you cannot hear is not an alert. Buy a tip-up.

Anyone in a one-line state. Covered above, and worth repeating because it is the cheapest mistake to avoid.

Anyone who hole-hops. A rattle reel is mounted hardware on a structure you are not moving. If your shelter goes up and down three times a day, you will stop rigging it by the second week. Our ice fishing gear page is the better starting point for mobile fishing.

Anyone who has not yet bought a flasher. If this is a choice between a second unattended line and knowing what is under the first one, buy the electronics. Our ice electronics page covers that end, and our flasher comparison covers which type.

What this actually costs

Worth laying out plainly, because the reel price is the smallest part of the number for a first set.

Those are the manufacturer’s published MSRPs, read off Clam’s own product pages. What each item costs on Amazon today is live on the cards above and stamped with the date it was checked. The second reel in the same house is the cheap one: you already own the baseplate standard, so it is a reel, line and another indicator.

What we could not tell you

More than we would like on this page, and it is worth being explicit about where the gaps are rather than papering over them.

Clam publishes a description and a SKU for every item here and no spool capacity, no dimensions and no weight for any of them - so how much line a reel holds, and whether it physically fits the wall you had in mind, are both unanswered. The indicator does not publish a battery type or a runtime, which on an overnight set in hard cold is the specification that decides whether it is armed at 3am. And Eskimo publishes nothing at all.

We have left every one of those as a gap rather than filling it from a listing bullet. That is the same standard our how we pick page applies to everything else on this site.