Ice fishing gifts: what to buy someone who is already out there

This is the gift that is slightly uncomfortable to give and absolutely the right one. Ice picks are the single piece of safety equipment that changes the outcome of a fall through ice, and because nothing bad has happened yet, they are the thing people put off buying for themselves.

The mechanics are simple and worth understanding before you give them: wet ice at the edge of a hole offers nothing to grip, and a person in cold water loses useful hand strength within minutes. Two spikes you can drive into the surface are what turn an impossible pull-up into a possible one. Clam publishes them as giving traction and leverage to pull yourself out, connected by a 30 in cord so they stay together and stay reachable.

Give them with the one instruction that makes them work: they are worn outside the jacket, round the neck or across the chest. Picks in a pocket or a bucket are picks you cannot reach. Our ice thickness and safety page covers the rest of the judgement about when to be out there at all.

Eighteen hours per warmer outlasts any ice day there is, and a box of ten means the recipient can leave them in the truck, the sled and a coat pocket without rationing them.

The reason this is a good gift rather than a filler is that nobody buys enough of them. People buy a four-pack in November and run out in January, and the box you give is the one in the glovebox in February. There is no size, no fit, no brand loyalty and no way to get it wrong.

Our hand warmer page covers the choice between these and a rechargeable pair, and makes the case that the right place for a Super Warmer is a chest pocket rather than a glove.

Jig storage is the gap in almost every ice kit, because the jigs get bought one or two at a time and the box never does. The usual state of someone’s ice tackle is a handful of tungsten in the corner of a bass tray, tangled together.

Clam publishes the foam as thick micro-slit and specifically names tungsten and lead jigs, which is the detail that makes this the right box rather than a generic tray - coarse foam built for bass hooks will not grip a sub-gram jig.

It is also a safe gift because the slim profile means it fits a bib pocket, so it does not have to match a sled or a bag you have not seen. Our ice jig box page works through the whole category if you want to pick a different size.

A skimmer is the most-used piece of ice equipment nobody thinks to buy. The hole skims over every few minutes in real cold, and clearing it with a gloved hand is cold, slow and puts your hand in the water - which is the thing you are trying to avoid.

Clam makes it in 12 in and 20 in. The 12 in is the right gift: it fits in a bucket and suits someone fishing on foot. The 20 in is for a shelter where you can leave it leaning against a wall.

At under ten dollars it is not a present on its own. It is what goes in the bucket alongside the jig box, which our bucket seat page treats as the core of a walk-on ice kit.

If you want to spend real money on an ice angler, a shelter heater is the item that changes the day rather than tidying it. It is the difference between three hours and eight.

The size is the only decision, and getting it wrong in either direction matters: too small and a hub shelter never warms, too large and a one-person flip-over is uncomfortable and burns through cylinders. Our Buddy against Little Buddy comparison puts both side by side on published BTU and coverage figures, and is the page to read before you buy one for someone else.

Buy the smaller unit if you do not know what shelter they fish. It is the safer error: a small heater in a big shelter is disappointing, a big heater in a small one is a ventilation problem.