As I have stated many times before when talking about ice fishing boots or ice fishing gloves, the most important ice fishing gear often is what we wear to keep us warm.  Ice fishing is a cold weather sport that can chill you to the bone if you don't dress appropriately.  And unless you are planning on staying inside your ice fishing house the entire day you are going to need something to keep the cold weather at bay.  Enter the ice fishing suit.  Unlike the snowmobile suits of old, the new fangles suits of today are great at keeping you warm and out on the hard water keeping you out there ice fishing for panfish and northern pike longer than you would have thought possible 10 years ago.  Without further adieu, here is a reasonably deep rundown of what is available on the market today:

Arctic Armor Ice Fishing Suit

If you are a run and gun ice angler like the modern ice angler of today often is you need a suit that is lightweight but warm.  That would be the arctic armor suit to a T.  It is not the most warm suit of the array that is on the market today, but it does have an advantage over just about everyone in terms of weight.  And it is plenty warm in its own right.  On top of that, one of the calling cards of this suit is the floating properties of the suit.  If you happen to fall in the suit will literally keep you on top of the water.  A great safety feature that comes along for free!

SnoSuit Ice Fishing Suit

If extreme temperatures are your game, you are best served in stepping up to this suit.  When the temperatures are not getting above 0 in the foreseeable future this is the suit that you want to have in your ice fishing arsenal.  From the Sno Suit website:

200 gram Snocore™ Insulation maintains the body's furnace while a waterproof, windproof and breathable shell insists that winter keep its distance. And all this comfort is yours without carrying the weight of the world on your jacket and bibs.

The trick here is that you are going to pay for this warmth.  Each piece of the Snosuit retails for $300 so you are looking and dropping $600 for the entire suit.  Nonetheless, if you are going to be dealing with extreme cold it is the way to go.

Vexilar Cold Snap Ice Fishing Suit

Here is a snow suit from the makers of Vexilar fish finders.  They definitely know their ice fishing flashers, and looking at their suits they do a pretty good job of making warm suits.  Fully complete with padded knees and elbows, the Vexilar suit is one that is liked by many who have gone this route.  I would put it at a solid third in my ranking.

Frabill Ice Fishing Suits

Another stalwart in the ice fishing world, Frabill makes just about everything from ice fishing tip ups to portable ice fishing houses, ice fishing rod and reels combos, etc.  There suits are warm and reasonably lightweight.  I would rank them on par with the Vexilar suits.

Cabelas Suits

One final note here is the Cabelas brand suits.  In general very good things can be said about Cabelas quality and attention to detail.  And most people that are hard on their gear use this stuff constantly.  My experience with the suits has been a bit poor given that it didn't stand up to my heavy use in the winter.  For the money I would look elsewhere, but I am sure that others have had different results.

What has your experiences been with the ice fishing suits that you have bought?  Any stories you could share with the readers of this site to help make their decision on which suit to buy?