Campfire food for ice fishing – food for a long day on the ice

It is ten o'clock and the children have been sitting at their own holes for an hour. There have been two bites, and one perch lies in the bag next to the rucksack. The seven-year-old has stopped jigging the rod and mostly sits staring down the hole. The eleven-year-old asks for the third time when there will be food.

This is where the day is decided. If lunch depends on the catch, it will be one single perch shared between four. If there is already soup in the flask and sausages in the rucksack, the perch becomes a bonus, and nobody has to go home hungry at twelve.

This page gathers the food for a day with the ice fishing rod: what you eat out on the ice, what you cook by the fire on land, how to pack it all and what the children can do. The recipes have their own pages; here you will only find why they suit the hole in the ice and what you do differently. Everything about fire and cooking in the cold in general is in the hub page winter campfire food.

The rule of thumb: the ice table and the shore table

A day of ice fishing (jigging through the ice) has two tables, and they have different jobs.

1. The ice table is the flask and your pockets. Out by the holes you sit still and barely move. There you eat things that need no fire: soup from the food flask, hot drinks and pocket snacks. That keeps everyone warm without anyone having to leave their rod.
2. The shore table is the fire and the frying pan. Up on land, at a fire pit or on gravel or sand, you cook whatever needs embers. You go there for lunch, to warm up and to move about.

On top of that comes one rule: plan lunch so that it works without a catch. The perch is plan A. Plan B is already in the rucksack.

Why ice fishing takes more food than a ski outing

On a ski outing you are moving the whole time. By the hole in the ice you sit on a bucket or a mat and wait. Metsähallitus in Finland writes that in winter the body uses a lot of energy just to keep warm, and that the risk of hypothermia increases if you stay still for too long. Ice fishing is exactly that: still, for a long time, in the cold and often in the wind out on the open ice.

For the food, that means three things:

• Eat often. Something small every hour works better than one big lunch that has to last all day.
• Eat fat and sweet things. Cheese, sausage, butter in the soup, chocolate and nuts give a lot of energy per mouthful.
• Drink warm and sweet. A cup of hot drink warms both the hands and the stomach, and the sugar gives quick energy.

Small children find it hard to say they are cold, and older children absorbed in their rod often notice late. Feel the back of the neck. If it is cold, it is time to get up, eat something and take a walk up to the fire. If the child is still cold despite food, movement and dry mittens, read about hypothermia and frostbite and call it a day.

The menu: plan A, plan B and the fika

Plan A: the catch in the frying pan

Fried perch over an open fire is the whole point of a day on the ice. The fish has never been near a fridge, and perch fried in butter with a crisp rye flour crust is hard to beat. What is different here is that everything that matters is done beforehand: the coating is mixed in a bag at home, the potatoes are boiled and packed cold, and the butter travels in an inside pocket so it is soft when the pan is hot.

By the hole, one thing applies. Never put the catch in the snow. A perch freezes solid in no time, and a frozen fish cannot be filleted by the fire. Kill it straight away, put it in a bag and put the bag in the rucksack. Once you have caught enough to eat, light the fire.

Plan B: soup and sausages that need no fish

• Salmon soup over an open fire (Finnish salmon soup) is the winner for anyone who wants fish whatever happens. The stock is carried boiling hot in a flask, so the pot comes to the boil in a few minutes by the fire. If the fish are biting, the soup can be made with perch fillets instead of salmon. Add the fillets last and let them simmer for 3–4 minutes.
• Potato and leek soup is vegetarian and mild, and the children recognise the taste. The leek is rinsed at home, the water is carried hot in a flask and the potatoes are peeled by the fire. It needs about 40 minutes on the embers, so it suits a day when you are staying by the fire for a while anyway.
• Ärtsoppa (Swedish yellow pea soup) (Swedish yellow pea soup) is the one that suits the ice table best. Cook it through at home and pour it piping hot into a preheated food flask, and you can eat it by the holes without a fire. Thin it a little extra before pouring it in, otherwise it gets too thick to get out of the flask.
• Beans and sausages is plan B for those who do not want soup. The sauce is frozen flat in a bag at home and thaws in the pot with a splash of water. On the way out it keeps the sausages cold.
• Suovas (Sami smoked reindeer meat) in flatbread is the quickest lunch by the fire. Smoked reindeer meat (suovas, a Sami speciality) fried in a few minutes and rolled up in flatbread. Carry the bread inside your jacket, because flatbread that has been lying in the cold cracks when you roll it.

Fika and dessert

• Kokkaffe (boiled coffee) (boiled coffee) is part of ice fishing for many adults. Bring boiling water in a flask, and the pot will boil in a few minutes instead of you having to melt snow. The children's drink is heated first.
• Warm apple juice is the children's drink on the ice. Heat it with the spices at home, strain it and pour it into the flask. A plastic bottle of cold apple juice, wrapped in a jumper so it does not freeze, cools the little ones' cups so nobody gets burnt.
• Blåbärssoppa (warm bilberry soup) (warm bilberry soup) works both as fika and as dessert. Make it a little thinner at home, so it pours easily from the flask and can be drunk straight from the mug.
• Apples baked in the embers are dessert if you stay by the fire after lunch. They need about 40 minutes in the embers, so put them in once the frying pan has come off.

If the frying pan is still hot when the fish is eaten, you can use it for a kolbulle (a thin Swedish pancake of flour and water fried in pork fat) with pork. It is a filling finish for anyone heading back out to the holes for a while longer.

The fire: on land, not on the ice

The fire is made on land. A permanent fire pit by the shore is best, otherwise gravel or sand as a base. Naturvårdsverket, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, advises avoiding rock slabs and larger boulders, because they can crack from the heat, and under the snow on a shore there can be both bare rock and moss. Sweep the base clear before you light the fire. Never make a fire on someone's property, and be considerate towards the people who live by the shore.

Do not make a fire directly on the ice. The fire melts a hollow that fills with water and puts out the embers, and charcoal and ash stay in the lake when the ice breaks up. If you still want to fry out by the holes, you can use a small grill or a fire bowl on legs, set on a fireproof base. Take the ash home or to a fire pit.

Wood under the snow is often wet, so bring dry wood and kindling from home. Everything about getting a fire going in the cold, in the wind and on snow, and about the rules for lighting fires, is in the hub page. In nature reserves and national parks, fires may be banned except at designated sites.

Choose your fishing spot by the fire

This is what most often goes wrong. The fishing spot is chosen by where the fish are biting, and the fire ends up a long walk away. Choose a spot where you can see the fire pit from the ice instead. At the same time, remember that the ice is often weaker along the shore, in reed beds, under jetties and by inlets and outlets. Walk back up the same way you walked out, where you know the ice held.

One lights the fire, the others fish

A bed of embers big enough for the frying pan takes about 20–30 minutes in the cold. If there are two adults, one can go up and light the fire while the others keep fishing. Children must never be left on the ice without an adult, so if there is only one adult, everyone goes up together and the children fetch firewood. Fillet while the fire burns down, and the fish will be ready for the pan when the embers are.

Timetable for a day on the ice

The times are just an example for a day starting at nine o'clock. Move them to suit the daylight and the journey, but keep the order.

Time	Where	What
The evening before	At home	Cook the soup, boil the potatoes, mix the coating, freeze the bean sauce
In the morning	At home	Preheat the flasks, fill them piping hot, butter and pocket snacks in inside pockets
9–10 am	The ice table	Out onto the ice, drill, fish. A hot drink as soon as everyone is sitting down
10.30 am	The ice table	Soup or something sweet from the flask
11.30 am	The shore table	One adult goes up and lights the fire, with the children if there is only one adult
12 noon	The shore table	Fillet while the fire burns down, fry the perch or cook plan B
1–1.30 pm	The ice table	Back to the holes, fika from the flask
Before dusk	The shore table	Put the fire out completely, pack up fish guts, rubbish and ash, and walk home in the daylight

In December the sun sets before three o'clock in Stockholm and even earlier further north, so in midwinter the daylight only lasts until lunch. The ice is harder to read when the light goes flat, and on a sunny day the ice closest to land can get weaker during the afternoon. Better to leave an hour too early than a quarter of an hour too late.

Packing for the ice

Most of what decides the day is in how you pack.

• Whatever should stay soft is carried on your body. Butter, flatbread, cheese and the children's pocket snacks go in inside pockets.
• Whatever is allowed to freeze goes on the outside. Frozen bean sauce and frozen bilberries can go on the outside of the rucksack or the pulk sled.
• The flasks go in the middle of the load, wrapped in a jumper.
• The catch has a bag of its own, and the fish guts and rubbish have another.

How to preheat and fill the flask so it stays hot all day is covered in cooking outdoors in winter.

The children's role

Ice fishing is one of the few winter activities where children can take real responsibility for the food.

• Fish and count. Whoever catches the fish decides who gets the first bite.
• Keep track of the fish bag, so no fish ends up in the snow.
• Coat the fish. Put the fillets in the bag, blow it up, hold it shut and shake. It is the perfect job for a child.
• Fetch firewood from the pulk and stack it neatly next to the fire.
• Squeeze the lemon and hand out the cups.

Older children can learn to fillet with an adult beside them, one fish at a time and with the knife pointing away from the hand. An adult handles the pan, the butter and the knife for the little ones.

Letting the children get up and walk to the fire is also good for keeping warm. A child who sits by the hole for two hours without moving will get cold, however good their clothes are.

The ice first, the food second

No soup in the world helps if the ice does not hold. The advice for ice fishing from Issäkerhetsrådet, the Swedish ice safety council, in brief:

• At least ten centimetres of clear, solid ice, and check it yourself even if others are already fishing there.
• Test-drill or strike with the ice pick every time you move.
• Ice claws worn outside the jacket, under the chin. Let the children practise with ice claws and a throw rope before you head out.
• Fish in a group. Children must be with at least one adult. Children who cannot swim should wear a lifejacket with a collar, and children who can swim a rucksack with light clothes in plastic bags.
• Spare clothes in a waterproof bag and your phone in a waterproof case, so you can call 112 quickly.
• Tell someone where you will be and when you plan to be back.

Smaller lakes and ponds often have safer ice than large lakes. Everything about weak spots, the colours of the ice and what to do if someone falls through is in ice safety with kids.

The fishing and the fish

Fishing permits. Along the coast and in the five largest lakes in Sweden, fishing with hand gear is free, and an ice fishing rod counts as hand gear. In other lakes you need a fishing permit or permission from whoever owns the fishing rights. Minimum sizes and closed seasons apply in the free fishing waters too. More about fishing for families is in the fishing guide.

Mercury. Perch can contain mercury, and the levels vary between lakes. Livsmedelsverket, the Swedish Food Agency, advises anyone who is pregnant, breastfeeding or trying to get pregnant to eat perch no more than two or three times a year. For everyone else, the advice is to vary with other fish if you eat perch you have caught yourself more often than once a week.

Take everything home. The right of public access gives you a lot of freedom on the ice, but rubbish and leftover food must not be left in nature. That includes fish guts and fish heads. Put them in the bag for fish guts and throw them away at home.

Next outing

Ice fishing is one of four winter situations where the fire makes the day. If you are heading out on skis with short breaks and Sami-style huts along the track, that calls for a different kind of food, and it is in campfire food on the ski slope and the cross-country tracks.