I've never done any ice fishing but I'm now seeing a lot of combos in the stores again for the season, and I'm wondering about these rods.  How do these thin little short rods handle a fish of any size?  Can someone shed a little light on why these rods are what they are?  

They are pretty much dink rods. I saw it on a show one time, they were ice fishing for walleye and were catching fish that make a dink bass look good.

                     -sm  

The reason ice rods are so short is that you don't need leverage to guide a fish when the line goes through a hole in the ice.  And it's not like you need to worry about keeping them from jumping!  ...lol  

As for the dinks comment...  I completely disagree.  Big fish are routinely caught through the ice.

My fishing partner and I caught N. Pike up to 28 inches on a UL Ice Fishing rod. It can be done.

I have caught many Largemouth and Smallmouth over 4 pounds on these rods through the ice. I like St. Croix rods and any 1000 reel with a decent drag.

The rods are short because you are sitting on a bucket looking down a hole. You dont need a long rod since the fish cant really go anywhere. You'd be surprised how well you can handle a good sized fish on these little rods.

Both caught on the short rod!!!!

I was pretty much kidding, I have seen some nice sized MUSKIES and PIKES come from the ice, some very big fish. I thought he was talking about the ones that are like a foot long and maybe 1/8 inch thick,

                          -sm

I have caught many Largemouth and Smallmouth over 4 pounds on these rods through the ice. I like St. Croix rods and any 1000 reel with a decent drag.

The rods are short because you are sitting on a bucket looking down a hole. You dont need a long rod since the fish cant really go anywhere. You'd be surprised how well you can handle a good sized fish on these little rods.

Both caught on the short rod!!!!

Hit it right on the head.  

I also prefer St. Croix ice rods and a quality 1000 size reel.  For panfish, I like a 28" UL rod.  For walleye, Croix makes a killer 24" L rod in the Legend series.  And for bass, a 24-32" M rod will do just fine.

I'm looking to get the 26" L st.croix

Otherwise i'd get cabela's brand ice combo but i can never get to them before they are sold out when they go on sale. I've heard a lot of good things about them from the guys here that do ice fish during the winter.

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/common/search/search-results1.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&selectedPerPage=&hasJS=true&_D%3AhasJS=+&_D%3Asort=+&sort=all&Ntt=ice+fishing+combos&_DARGS=%2Fcabelas%2Fen%2Fcommon%2Fsearch%2Fsearch-box.jsp.form1

Heree is what Cabelas has in stock now, their stuff, st Croix and Frabill combos

Those are some nice fish Matt 825, great picture.