Scary Ice Fishing outings?

[TProGuy]

The part of my story that scares me the most is what could have happened, instead of what did happen. About 12 years ago, I decided to put my fishouse on a west metro lake that I had been fishing quite a bit. It was mid-January and the ice in the bays was about 22" thick. I was pulling my house out with my F-250, and would stop and walk 100 yards ahead of the truck checking the ice along the way, and never found less than 18" of ice. I was trying to locate a small sunken island to put my house on without much luck. I decided to park the truck and house along shore and use it as a starting point for my search on foot, despite my plan to just drive the truck right to the spot. I eventually found the sunken island, and was glad that I had changed my original plan, as there was just 3" of ice on the sunken island. It turns out that I was only 50 yards or so from the spot when I decided to head for shore. It would have been a cold and expensive swim, had I driven the truck to the spot.

[pegleg]

Yes Crappiekid, I will never forget the cars and trucks parked on shore at Brandt's with water up to their wheel wells. You also mentioned the 2 bridges at Brandt's and we only crossed 1 bridge coming back in.... Pretty scary stuff.

[Jim43]

Jim43, is your Avatar a picture of when you were 14 or 15? Or are you just trying to let your kids have some thin ice stories like your Dad? That looks like some pretty clean ice there!

That is my son on Sleepy Eye lake 3 years ago. Was a good 6" of ice. Was one of those days when it warmed up in the afternoon and made ice kinda scary. He was 10 in that shot.

Pictures from the 12-10-06 ice fishing on Sleepy Eye Lake

[FasterThanYou23]

We were fishing out of Zippel bay the day after Thanksgiving a number of years ago. 4-5" of ice about 1/2-3/4 mile out when the ice started rolling. You could actually see the ice moving up and down.

I read this last night,and then had a dream it was happening to me.lol

[leech~~]

TTT, oldy but goody.

[walleyeslammer]

My scariest story was back in 1997 when we had all those blizzards. My dad and I drove our 1974 John Deere snowmobile out to the lake which is just down the street from our house. The weather was good, so my mom decided she wanted to come out too. On a side note we had 3 people and a dog in a 4x8 homemade shack. All of a sudden we heard stuff hitting the tarp on the shack so dad went outside and it was a white out, an unexpected blizzard had us out on the lake. Luckily it was only 1/4 mile to our house. He said 5 more minutes and we had to go. After the 5 minutes were up dad said he would take my mom home on the snowmobile and the come back for me so I could fish a little longer. Dad, mom, and the dog took off toward shore and I couldn't see them after about 30 yards. Well as a 11 year old at the time, I became scared about 5 minutes after they left thinking that dad may not be able to come back and get me. Then my heater turned off and the light in the fish house burnt out and I really got worried. Well amidst all of that, the front that was moving in turned on the fish and I began catching them hand over fist. Around a half an hour passed and I wondered if my dad had decided to just wait until later to come and get me. Nowadays he could've just called me on the cell, but that was back in the dark ages. Anyhow, thankfully all of a sudden I heard the distinct scream of the old John Deere. And then a knock came at the door. I told dad of my fishing success but for some reason he really didn't care, he didn't even respond, he just said get your stuff, we gotta go. So I grabbed my gear, we flipped the house down and headed home. It took a little while to get home because of visibility and when I got home I realized why it had taken him so long. Our dog had gotten run over by a car on the way home and was laying dead in our driveway. That showed how scary it can be when the weather gets hairy on the ice. My dad didn't ice fish again for 5 years after that, and I don't think he'll ever bring our new dog with. Good luck out there and stay safe.

[leech~~]

walleyeslammer, it sounds like that outing must have really shook up your dad? He must have been worried 4 different ways. For your mom, you, himself & the Dog. It's a lot of pressure on a person when you know you are the one responsible for putting your whole family in harms way.