Ice auger?

[wiperhunter2]

Lots of good info there, have you ever tried the nils?

Yeah- in fact my ruined trip was with a 6” nils hand turn. I loved that auger tho. If I had to burn holes by hand, I would use a Nils for sure. But a drill set up is not very different in weight or bulk, so I’m never drilling by hand again.  When that Nils let me down, I hit small stone that put a burr on the blade. Definitely not the augers fault, just what can happen to a shaver. It would just spin and not cut after that. I had nothing to knock the burr off. I started carrying a small file after that. Like I said- most of my preferences are from bad experiences. Here is a counter example-  last year at the Millsite derby I hit some really dirty ice. There were layers of sand embedded in the 8” of ice. They must get some wild wind there. The shavings looked like mud at times and even had small chunks of what looked like broken rock from the surrounding landscape. My KDrill chewed right through it. I think it may have even sharpened it a little. That amount of garbage would have caused havoc with shavers.

I bought a 6" Nils for a 20v DeWalt drill motor 4 years ago, this will be it's 5th season coming up. It came with a hand attachment, in case you run out of battery juice but I have never used it. It cost me $100 for the nils and $100 for the motor at the time and it was the best investment I have ever made for ice fishing. We fish at least once a week during the season but we don't do tournaments and have never run across the conditions you have faced. I use the DeWalt a ton during the Summer and did end up buying two extra batteries but they are only 2ah batteries but hold up well for my needs. I do believe the Kdrill is the best one on the market but I just can not justify the cost, at least at this time, that could change in the future.