My long gaff is used a lot in the walleye house for pushing down a hole to pop mono line free from an ice crack that th line has found at the bottom of the ice.
A gaff that floats is a very good thing.
As far as ice thickness, most of my experience is on ice from 10" to 40" thick.
We are at around 30" currently.
One more thing.
You should be able to drop an unopened can of beer into a fishing hole from waist height and the can of beer should come back up and float in the hole. If it don't come back, you either don't have enough ice thickness or your beer is too crappy.
