Fry an egg on the sidewalk? Go for it. Sweat like a Scandinavian in a sauna? If it floats your boat. We, however, the ice-fishing extremists, will be holed-up tinkering with AC settings to find a temp that frosts mugs and makes breath visible. We’ll be inside growing NHL-playoff-quality beards while slush curdles in our veins. Heck, we’re still celebrating Summer Solstice and the onset of shorter days and impending winter.
Frostbitten madmen? Perhaps. But there are more of us than you think; fanatical guys and gals who daydream about frost and elate at the notion of first ice. To us; to them; to you; Frabill offers a peek behind the snowdrift to what is quite possibly the most extensive and redefining collection of new ice fishing products to date.
Category by category, here are CliffsNotes for what’s in Frabill’s hard-water-hopper for ice fishing 2013-14:
Ice Fishing Shelters
The category defines an ice fishing company. Come to market with great fish houses and anglers can expect everything from tip-ups to bait containers to be equally superior. Peddle ramshackle fish houses and, well, the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.
The Frabill name is synonymous with premier-shelter design. And for ice fishing 2013-14, Frabill’s gone out on a solid limb, adding to their already bountiful fish house harvest.
A trio of new models showcases Frabill’s ingenious SideStep™ doorway system with Fishouflage styling to pronounce your ice fishing passion. The Fishouflage Ambush, Fishouflage Ambush DLX and Fishouflage Ambush Thermal DLX let you exit and enter through the sides without disrupting the feng shui of electronics, heaters, bait containers and clean holes at your feet.
Continuing with the contemporizing of looks, Frabill has added Fishouflage patterning to the Outpost and Headquarters Hub Style Shelters.
Tip-Ups
Now here’s a category you might associate with cavemen and the invention of fire. Fact is, though, that while other brands keep printing cheap archaic flags and frames, Frabill continues to lift up the tip-up and bolster its performance and value.
For ice fishing 2013-14, the brainiacs at Frabill advance proven old-world straightline techniques with the Straight Line Tip-Up and go utterly techno with the Universal Calibrator Line Counter Kit, which turns your basic ‘board’ into futuristic fish weaponry with timers and digital line counters.
Last but not least, the Snow Show Tip-Up yields a base broad enough to bridge snowdrifts and the biggest holes you can drill.
Rods & Reels
Frabill took straightlining and long-rodding from their obscure and ancient roots and made them accessible to the everyday angler. Line pours off straightline reels to maximize sensitivity and eliminate aggravating line twist. Longer-than-average ice rods – Jigglers – arch concentrically and set with certain sweetness while you ricochet from hole to hole.
The new Straight Line 261 Reel advances the category Frabill created. The featherweight composite reel takes up and releases line with liquidity, while its sophisticated drag system can manage the flight of a bumblebee.
Frabill’s new Straight Line 101XLA Reel proudly advances upon the original 101 – ice fishing’s first production straightline model. Included, short and long reel stems afford the flexibility to palm the reel or fish even while wearing gloves.
261 and 101XLA reels are available on a full battery of combos as well.
The Telescoping Jiggler Rod – 54-and 64-inch versions – expand Frabill’s long-rodding arsenal and contract for easier storage and safer transport
Livebait Management
Frabill is really just another word for bait. Ask a minnow merchant. Heck, ask a minnow. This expertise for housing and maintaining livebait carries over from the waves to frozen surfaces, too. And nowhere is this mastery of minnows more evident than in Frabill’s new 1469 Aqua-Life® Bait Station. The 6-gallon minnow-minder infuses the water with quiet-pumping micro-bubbles that’ll sustain everything from massive sucker minnows to scores of fatheads for days.
Tackle Management
The equation is simple: The chief architect of tackle storage – Plano – acquires the best brand in ice fishing – Frabill – and out pops the Frabill Softbag, the tackle storage solution ice fishing has wanted since, well, there was ice…
It’s called ‘reverse hibernation,’ when a particularly eccentric angler goes dormant during the summer months only to emerge at first ice, revitalized and ready to drill holes from here to eternity.
For those of you in a deep, midsummer slumber, perhaps even battling seasonal depression (you know who you are ) trust that Frabill understands, and offers therapy in the form of new ice fishing equipment.
Come on, you can make it to first ice. We’ll be right there by your side…
ABOUT FRABILL
Frabill, Inc. (Plano, IL) is in its 75th year of engineering premium, trusted fishing equipment. Frabill’s ice fishing product lineup consists of portable ice fishing shelters, rod and reel combos, tip-ups, bait containers, portable aeration, and premium ice fishing apparel, including FXE Snosuit. Openwater products include landing nets, portable aeration, bait containers, bait care, bait traps and seines, accessories, and premium openwater apparel, such as the new F-Series Stormsuit. Visit www.frabill.com.