Augers

Local F.D. has an 8 inch, I believe Eskimo, 4 stroke, 1 pound LP can.  Turn on the gas and pull it.  Done.  Most of the other power tools are powered by the same brand and battery,  including the Jaws . I won't mention the brand. 

Speaking of that, North Shore Bait Company in Oconto has seriously discounted ice fishing gear he needs to move to make way for spring inventory. His Facebook page has specifics. 

The winter we had should make this a great time to buy an auger for next year.  The stores have to move inventory out of the way. 

I still own 2 gas augers that I bought at the same time but I haven't tried starting them in 3 or 4 years. 

Dang, I missed out, the sale and rebate ended on the 21st. Oh well, really don't need it till next year.

Wow! I would go for it. I had a GEN 1 for about 10 years. Drilled thousands of holes. Awesome machine! Only reason I got a new one this year, was the Eskimo E40 came in quite a bit lighter. And my battery had finally stopped taking a charge…But the GEN one is a great auger for me. Started every single time. Not as fast as the Eskimo, but I do think the battery lasts a bit  longer than the new Eskimo battery. Certainly electric augers have gotten a little faster and lighter since the GEN one. But, there really would be no downside at that price! 

I was at Menards and saw they have a 40 volt  ION Gen 1 for $350 with a $100 rebate. Now they also ave another 11% off so final price would be about ​$210. Are there any issues with the Gen 1 because ​I've seen other Ions for a whole lot more, thanks for your thoughts.

I do miss the sound of the old augers... I don’t even think they make gas augers anymore. Do they? For $100 though, you can’t go wrong!

A few years back I picked up a Beast Auger, 10" Jiffy in great condition at a pawn shop $ 100.00. I use the canned 40:1 fuel.  Started it last weekend, 3 pulls and running on last years gas.  You don't hear many of these echoing across the lakes any more.  I like it. 

Just an all around poor choice, instant regret lol

Banging the auger to break through can’t be good for the blades either

I always get a little apprehensive letting friends run my auger. They are definitely not indestructible like the ole jiffys were and they take a little getting used to, especially if someone's never used one.
I think it was 3 seasons ago I was out in the Brainerd area doing some scouting for a guys weekend. I was drilling a hole and my battery died but I knew I was just about through the ice so I picked it up and gave it a few hits with the auger bit to try and break through. Well, it broke through just fine, and my drill chuck busted at the same time. That was the end of my fishing until the rest of the crew showed up. I now carry a spare drill with my in my truck at all times. Live and ​learn!

Great advice! Another item to consider is pressure on the auger. You do not have to lean on, or even push down on them, doing so just works them harder than needed.

Saturday morning a friend grabbed my 6" Strikemaster as we were moving to stay on some Crappie's. He leaned on it like he was trying to dig a post hole and you could hear the auger slow. He said "I think your battery is going dead" so I showed him how to do it letting the drill do the work. At the end of the day and countless more holes he said "This is a *amn nice piece of equipment"

Junkie, thanks for the tip clearing shavings. I did notice slight difficulty bringing auger back up with all the shavings. Very well could explain faster battery wear than expected. Never used electric auger before. 

One thing to keep in mind with all electric augers, and especially ones with composite flights, is that you need to clear the hole more often than you would with a gas auger. Not as important when the ice isn't overly thick, but as the ice shavings build up in the hole it adds pressure to the flights and puts extra strain on the auger head and will drain the battery significantly faster. First year I switched to electric was 2019 and I broke several flights from user error. Fortunately they are easy enough to replace and I haven't broke any since.
The strikemaster does seem to bite more on the bottom of the hole than most electric augers probably because of the serrated blades.