Not ice fishing in the traditional sense Tony, but i used to smash the ice up to fish when i fished things like the winter league, fished with very fine tackle, often a wire tipped float held in the surface skim with a smear of Vaseline, 12oz hook length with bloodworm & joker and we fished for eyes as we called them (tiny roach, rudd, gudgeon & perch), the comps used to be won with mere ounces sometimes, good fun though.
We used to use a 5lb sledge hammer head attached to length of chain, tied to a rope, throw the head out smash through the ice then use the chain as a saw to cut the ice, keep going until you have cleared a big enough area to fish in, the smashed ice got netted out and/or pushed under the ice sheet.
