Ever had a muskrat scare the rat out of ya???

[sidecar pan fishin man]

This guy scared the dump out of us coming up our ice holes!!!

[Gissert]

Yes! I've had them set up a feeding station under my dark house some years. I forgot to put my hole cover over and left for a week, and when I came back, there were root cuttings everywhere. I actually kind of liked them around, as they kept the ice down in my spear hole. If I just keep the hole covers on, all the mess stays under the house.

I also had a beaver roll throught a couple times just below the ice. Now THAT scared the heck out of me. I have seen big snapper turtles moving slowly across the bottom after first ice in late November some years.

[eurolarva]

I saw something coming up through the ice and grabbed my spear and it came to the surface for a quick gulp of air. I know what you mean about scary. I usually bring spare gloves but have had no reason for spare underwear. My father in law finally speared it because he said it was scaring the northerns away. He said they taste like chicken

[fish-n-geek]

Seen one get snagged on a jig pole. Never seen six guys clear out of a shack so quick...

[efgh]

A muskrat travels under the ice buy finding loose ice bubbles under the ice and pushing them along with his nose, before a muskrat pops up in your hole you will always see a bubble pop up first, the first time this happened to me was on woeman lake in the north west bay, it happened 3 or four more times in 2 hours, my brother-in-law was fishing with us for the first time that year, he came over to my house to set with me and talk a while, pretty soon a bubble poped up in the hole, a muskrat right behind it, I just keep on talking like nothing happened, the rat climbed out of the spearhole, ran behind the stove, came out from there and back down the hole, he said, did you see that, I said what, he said I;m getting out of here, this happened 25 years ago, we still joke about this when we talk about fishing in that area.

[who are those guy]

Few years back a muskrat came up a hole in a house i was in. So was my old dog. 15 seconds later there was blood and muskrat fur everywhere. The dog got bit in the nose as it was doing its death shake to the muskrat. Its nose bled for two hours, man that was a mess. Post-mortum the muskrat got punted about 23 yards.

[Duffman]

Yep, one smack from the Big Dipper and it was never seen again. They sure do scare the bejeezus out of ya when they pop up.

[Finlander]

I was fishing for sunfish on lake Osakis in 10' of water and the hole I was fishing was coned out at the bottom so the bottom of the hole was about 2' wide.

The way to catch the sunfish was to watch the sunfish cruise the weedy bottom and take your hook. As the sunfish would take your waxworm in it's mouth and spit it out in a milli-second. So we covered the windoews so we could see cleary to the bottom and obsevre the fish swimming through.

So when you see the sunfish inhale you hook, you had to set the hook ASAP or no fish!

Then one time doing this watch fishing method, a dogfish come up the hole and takes a gulp of air and I just about crapped my underware as I screamed like a little girl!

Man my brothers still ribb me about that!