Hole “flushing”

Went out yesterday to a small pond. It had been raining/melting a bit in IA and the pond was covered in water. My ice house is set up a great area where I normally do well. When I drilled my 3 holes in the ice I instantlly noticed the holes looked like someone had flushed a toilet. Hole, ice, etc etc went sucking down the hole so fast it amazed me. No need to clean out the holes today. When I dropped the transducer down it showed the “vortex” of bubbles about 6′ down. I even tried to fish with a bobber in one hole and it just sucked the whole rig down the hole. Could not even fish with smaller jigs as they just swirled around. Finally went with a spoon with a dropper hook. Fishing was so hard this way and I did not do very well in my normal hot spot. Took about 1 1/2 hour for two of my holes to stop, but the one hole went swirling for over 4 hours. I have never seen anything like it and wondered if anyone else has had this experience and do you think this is what was messing up the fishing?

Yep. Just a few times. usually when there is lots of water on the ice and little snow. Ice is trying to float up. Water is trying to go down. Have seen it strip all the line off tip ups, rattle reels. Holes can start to open up 2 to 3 feet or more. Had disk type tip ups get sucked down the holes.

Look for it to happen when there is a good amount of snow on the lake. Then we get a warm south wind with rain that melts the snow and floods the lakes. Have seen waves on top of the ice with this to.

Seen it a lot in the spring.

Punch a bunch of holes around you and then bank your holes where you are fishing with whatever you can.

Hope it does not weaken the ice around your house and take it down. I have had happen at my cabin in WI when tip up fishing. Came back next morning and 4 ft hole. My kids called it the death star because of the trails in the snow leading to it.

Mwal

Yep, seen it a few times. A lot of water on the ice pushing down. The ice wants to float up but the water on top is pushing it back down, when you drill that hole you give the water a chance to go under the ice and gravity takes its course.

Drill 15-20 holes around you and just wait for it to go away. Or stand back and look at the lake and try to find a spot where the ice is higher and has less water.

saw this happen on Mille Lacs once, made a big huge vortex and would have sucked a truck right in. Experienced this two weeks ago on a farm pond, made some wierd noises, but after a few hours the ice was pretty dry.

Its alot better than drilling a hole and having a geyser!

@grump
Congrats.
That pig is the most annoying avatar on the interwebz.

Saw this on Green Lake at Blackhawk Park 2 weeks ago. One hole was just like a spring running into it. Look for cracks with ever so slight heaves on drill in those high spots.

I hate to see a hole flushing that keeps expanding…