Honestly, unless there is water available with walleye or pike in it, it just isn't worth it to me to put money into ice fishing. I grew up doing a lot of it up in Minnesota but that was a very different game from Indiana.
I go a time or two a year down here but honestly the fishing just isn't very good since bass and cats seldom play ball. Plus, I don't walk on ice less than 7 inches. That said, it is a lot less work making holes when you don't have 2 to 3 feet of ice to punch through with a hand auger.
Does anyone in the Indy area sharpen auger blades?
They used to park full size semi trailers on Detroit Lake in Minnesota for the snowmobile races. They did it for years but then one year got unlucky and a bunch of them went through the ice. We used to drive on the ice pretty regularly once it got more than 2 feet thick. It is pretty fun in a car or truck going pretty fast on the ice as you can do some pretty wild spins and such. Then again, I had a lot more tolerance for the cold back when I was a teenager than I do now.I get nervous when temps go above 32 and then refreeze. The ice gets weird and grainy and I don't trust it. When I lived in Manitoba Canada it would get below freezing and stay there for months. You could tow out a shed with the truck and falling through would not cross anybody's mind. There would be parking lots on the ice for winter festivals. fishing was like sitting on the couch in the living room with a hole in the floor that you pull fish from while listening to the hockey game on the radio. The drawback - it was cold for months. That's why I live here now!