To me there is nothing worse than having a fish show up on your ice fishing flasher, not take the bait, know you need to switch your presentation, but don't want to retie a different ice jig on your line. My solution to this is to have multiple rods all set up in advance.

 

Now, I am by no means the only person to do this and truth be told I stole the idea from a good friend that is a bass fishing fanatic on soft water. The premise is to have 3-5 rods (more if you really want to get into the spirit!) and have a different presentation on each. Perhaps if I am crappie fishing I would have on a 1/16 oz Lindy Frostee Jigging Spoon on one pole, a 1/16 oz Genz Bug on another, a Gill Pill on a third rod, and a small Chubby Darter on a 4th rod. Obviously you can mix and match with your personal favorites, but you get my point. The key aspect being if you see that fish rise on your Marcum VX-1, but he won't bite, switch to a different rod and presentation and see if that works.

I think you will see a noticeable impact in the amount of fish caught when applying this method.