Any good stranded or cold night on the lake stories?

[silveroddo]

Now that we've actually got some winter weather I've remenissed a little and I thought back to the times I've been stranded or spent a cold night on the ice.

One of the memorable ones was spending the night on the ice with my little bro fishing eelpout, we'd borrowed my dads early 90's ford diesel (not renowned for their cold starting ability) and we knew it could get tempermental trying to start it in temperatures below 40 above, so we made sure to go out and start it every few hours, the trick though was to turn it over for about 10 seconds and if it didn't fire, cycle the glow plugs again and try and not wear the batteries down.In the early hours of the morning I was to lazy to get out of my warm bunk and go outside to start it so I sent my brother, and as I lay in the bunk listening to it turn over I could tell he should stop and cycle the glow plugs again......but he didn't, then before I could go out and stop him I hear the starter turing slower, and slower, and I knew he'd worn the batteries down, it was late and there wasn't anything to do so we said the heck with it and just called it a night, but before we even fell asleep the heater started to sputter, and sure enough we ran out of propane. I learned 2 very important lessons that night, always have a spare propane cylinder, and if you want somthing done right, do it yourself.Luckily we had borrowed the old mans cell phone and he's a pretty understanding guy.

[RosoRiverRat]

I have one. It's from my high school days. I had a permanent house out of Zippel on LOW. A buddy and I had originally planned to spend the night out there so everybody expected us not to come home. This was before cell phones. Anyway we got out there with my '85 Bronco 2 and had a pretty good time most of the day. As night fell I set up a 12 volt light and ran the cables out to the Bronco. Northwest wind picked up pretty good and this was before I had the house insulated so we were feeding the wood stove pretty good to stay nice and cozy. I remember playing a Hank Williams Jr cassette over and over throughout the day.

Anyway at some point in the early evening we decided the wood was gonna run short if we stayed all night so we decided lets get outa here. Pitch dark out by now, nobody else around, and as I turn over the Bronco it puts out a pathetic rrr rrr rr.

We started rationing the wood and brought the temp in the house down considerably trying to make it through the night. Some time around the early AM hours we ran out of wood and started getting serious about our situation. Up until that point we had kinda blew it off and laughed and joked about it. We froze our butts off in that house the rest of the night and at about 5AM we here a faint sound of and auger running and I spotted the guy and walked to him and without explaining our stupidness I asked him to give us a boost.

I remember cranking the heat in the Bronco. I also remember meeting lots of traffic getting off the lake and saying those guys must be crazy to want to go ice fishing. We spent the rest of the day at his house bundled up and eating pizza and watching PGA golf of some warm sunny place.

[12lb8oz]

This wasn't me, but a buddy I was with. 6 of us went fishing at LOW. We had an 8x12 sleeper that is nice and cozy, but it only sleeps 4, sometimes 5 if you really cram in there. Anyhow, my buddy and his friend he had brought along had a clam 8600 or 6800, I can't remember but it is just big enough for 2 cots. Well it got pretty cold that night and a storm moved in. It was about -25 and 40 mph winds. We fished until dark, played poker and drank until about 2am. It was now bedtime. Those 2 said they'd tough it out, even though we could hear the wind howling like a wolf. They settled into their portable, each had a little heater underneath their cot. They headed into their portable and we settled into our nice warm cots in the permanent house. About 7am I got up and decided to check and make sure they were still alive. I got to their portable and found it nearly completely iced over. After fighting with the zipper for a few minutes I found them cuddled up like a couple of rabbits in a snowstorm. They had made it through the storm. There was ice built up all around the inside of their house, but they were warm enough. The fabric of the portable had flapped in the wind all night long and drove them crazy, but they made it. I wouldn't have wanted to be in that portable that night.

[JustinG]

My first ice outing of 2004: Went to a small lake in the middle of nowhere. Set up, caught some fish, and around 6:00 pm decided to head in. Started the truck up and got going up a small hill and the truck dies. We get out, take a look around to find oil EVERYWHERE! My oil cooler lines in my truck blew off!! There was no way anyone was going to save us, we were on a logging road and isolated with no houses or signs of another human for miles and miles.

So, with the temp of about -15 below, we start walking out in Ice King boots, over rough terrain and new snow in the middle of the Superior National Forest. Cold, but sweating bullets and exhausted we walked for 3.5 hours at a fast pace. My feet and legs hurt so bad from trudging through snow with those heavy boots on, I didn't think we were going to make it out that night. As it turned out, it was 5.5- 6 miles we walked that night. I look back now at how exhausted, sweaty, and cold we were and we could have died out there and no one would have known about it. We did have matches and 2 frozen beers though!

Justin

[Lucky12]

I am sure you will get i or 2 just from this weekend alone

[Catfishunter]

that you cymbe?

[12lb8oz]

Yeah it is, how's it going? Have you done much fishing lately? I haven't been out at all but I think I am heading to Upper Red on Sat. Take it easy

[Catfishunter]

will be at big winne fri, sat, and sun. goten out on the st. louis river a couple times and been geting some nice eye's, pout and some big @#$ sturgen. if you are going to be up north give me a call, maybe slab fest on upper red?