Scariest Ice experience

[Guest]

Figured we could get another good thread going because my two stories definitely were not amusing at the time.

First, when I was too young to remember my age dad decided we would go ot to the shack on angler's bay, Big Spirit Lake. He had been pounding the perch for a week. The wind was 40+ with blizzard conditions but, the ice was packed anyway. It was a good 300 yard walk out to the shack and Dad had to hold my hand the whole way as I recall because I was having my feet blown out from under me. We got in the shack and redrilled through a good 6" and then got the wolverine wood stove fired up. I don't think we were in the shack for more than 10 minutes when BOOM and water shot straight up through the holes. Before I knew it dad had tossed me out of the shack and I was blowing toward shore on my butt. Needless to say there were more than a few shacks that had to be burned off the ice that year.

When I lived in SE colorado for a while I used to take an ice fishing trip into the Sangra De Cristo range a few times a year for massive pink fleshed rainbows. The lake was up at 10,500' and it was a four hour hike up there with all your gear strapped to your back so I never had to see anyone else on the ice until this one time. I get up there and there are a couple of guys that had never ice fished before. They said they had been trying to drill a hole for 30 minutes and had only got about 3" down. I looked at their "borrowed auger", the blades were not visible beneath all the rust so I drilled them some holes and gave some advice on how to ice some rainbows. We went at fishing for about an hour when all of the sudden the ice literally drooped a good 4-6". You could see it piling up against the mountains on either side. Well I am peeing my pants and I look over and both of these guys are on all fours praying for their lives, now that was humerus. The only thing that I could figure was that the lake level gradually drops all winter and the ice catches up from time to time by the looks of all the piled ice.

[This message has been edited by chiro (edited 11-15-2002).]

[Cyberfish]

One time me and Bassputzter went crappie fishin on this small lake, the ice was pretty thick, but not quite safe enough to drive out to the middle, so we parked about ten feet from shore and walked out to fish.
On the way in, we met a few folks from way down south that have never been on ice before, and they were wondering if it was safe to walk on. It was at least eight inches of good clear ice so we said, sure, its plenty thick. They started out onto the lake while we loaded our gear in my pickup.
Well, we started moving, and my truck started the ice a crackin' good as we were driving off, when we got on the ramp, I looked back and saw those poor southerners running as fast as they could toward shore.
They musta thought the lake was bout to swallow em up!

Cyb ><>

[wallydiver]

Mine was just last year, i went out by Pine Island. got 1/2 way between shore and the island and saw a full size truck crashed through the ice about 150 yds. away. I drove past it, set up, drilled holes, (in about 9 in. of ice & caught no fish by the way). As I sat there and other trucks were driving around, I saw the cracks go through my house and my holes. That freaked me out

[Guest]

I set up on the Bois De Sioux River near Wahpeton, ND on early ice, just about Thanksgiving. The ice was 3-4" consistently across the area I was fishing as I checked it out pretty well with a spud bar before settling in.

I opened a pair of holes near the one shore and another set across the bank where I placed a tip-up. Now I set up on my jigging holes and got to it. I caught 3 nice walleye almost as fast as I could drop the jig down, things looked pretty good.

That day we has a dusting of snow that covered the ice and the shoreline, not much snow really, just enough to whiten things up. I was fishing that evening and nobody else was out and it appeared nobody had been out either.

About now my tip-up on the opposite bank pops and the old jingle bell gets my blood pumping. I set down my jigging rod, grabbed my snud bar, and made a slow B-Line to the tip-up. About half way over ~SPLOOSH~ down I go, into a drifted over 3' by 4' unmarked spear hole.

The center of the river was about 8' then & had enough current flowing from Lake Traverse to be a serious problem if I got sucked under the ice. I would have been screwed for sure.

I managed to hang on the lip of the old spear hole but the newly frozen chunks kept breaking away making it hard to get a solid grip on good ice so I could pull my fat *** back up to the surface.

This went on for about 4-5 minutes as I could hear the cars drive by on the bridge not 40' away, I knew they would never see me, I was on my own for sure. I knew if I lost my grip or if the cold got to me before anyone came it was over.

I managed to swing my boot up against one side of the speer hole and slip a arm out of the hole to get some leverage. Once I did this I managed to get the other boot out and I rolled up on the ice like a fat old seal and paddle my way off to the side for safety. I still think I got dam lucky that night.

Moral of the story is...

Don't fish alone on early ice,

No such thing as safe ice,

Never assume ice is consistent!

Oh...Ya, and PLEASE Mark your $#%# SPEER HOLES TOO EH!
------------------
Backwater Eddy..><sUMo>

Backwater Guiding
"Ed on the RED"
(701)-281-2300
[email protected]
http://ed-carlson.fishingbuddy.com

[This message has been edited by Backwater Eddy (edited 11-16-2002).]

[jigglestick]

wally, let me get this straight-- you watched a truck go through then drove around it,drilled holes, set up, and proceeded to fish and catch nothing?or you seen where a truck had gone through at an earlier time(i hope). slightly confused here--jigglestick--

[wallydiver]

Just to clarify: The truck went through the day before. If I saw them go through I surely would have stopped and helped.

[Guest]

My worse days ice fishing.
(But it was still better than any day at work!)

My Mother always use to say that bad things always happen in “3s”. This is about 3 trips in a row that really take the cake!
Thank God I lived thru them, and other than Gissert feeding me Lutefisk, the rest of my trips have been pretty good.

It all started when one day I went ice fishing at Silver Lake in New York. It turned out to be an exceptionally warm day for Feb., warming up to 45 – 50*F.
Later, close to noon, it started to rain a little but built up to a downpour by about 1:00. I wasn’t to concerned, “What the heck”, I figured, I was dry in my hut, and the fish were cooperating. Well at times the wind would really come up, and the driving rain was starting to come down in sheets that would pound the side, and top of my hut. It was good I was tied to the Honda, or that wind would have blown me across the lake. It was raining so hard that I knew I couldn’t ride off the lake, so I just sat it out for about 1 or 2 hours. There wasn’t much if any snow left on the ice to absorb the rain, and it started to pool on the lake. The water that now was about 1 ½ to 2” deep all over the entire lake was running under my hut, and down my holes. That made it hard to watch for the bites (Like fishing in a toilet that was flushing!), so as soon as the rain started to taper off, I packed up my gear on my 4-wheeler, (getting soaked to the buns), towed my hut to the shore, packed up, and left.
That all happened on a Wed., and almost every weekend, my friends and I go to Lake Simcoe in Ontario for 2 days to some of the best perch fishing you could ever imagine. So off I went on Saturday at 3:00am, heading up north. The weather did a little change in those 3 days, and north of Toronto, it was severe blizzard conditions. The snow was heavy, and all horizontal. At times you couldn’t tell which lane you were in on the 3-lane highway, and of course there was the occasional one-who-thinks-I-am-silly that had to pass everyone. With the wind gusting over 50mph, and a temp of -5*F it wasn’t a fun drive in the dark.
When we got to the lake the wind was still blowing about 40, and it was still snowing, and cold as hell. The first thing that happened, was when I went to unload the 4-wheeler off the truck, I noticed that my ATV seat was missing. I don’t know if the wind got it, or someone at the restaurant we stopped at figured that they needed the seat more than I did, but never the less, it wasn’t there. I used a cushion my buddy had for a seat, and unloaded the Honda. Then I got my hut off the truck, and started to set it up. Well the moisture from the rain at Silver Lake immediately froze in the –5* temp. As soon as I opened the hut, and the entire thing turned into a frozen sheet. I ripped an 8” hole in the hut with one of the support poles, because the fabric was like a thin sheet of ice. The plastic zipper pull split in two and the zipper broke, so I couldn’t zip the one of the doors closed (My hut was a Shappell).
I wasn’t going to let that stop me from a fun day of fishing. I left the door on the other end of the hut alone, as to not break that zipper too. This would at least make my hut a semi-enclosed windbreak. I loaded up my electric auger, fishing poles, and heater, and off we went. We drove about 7 miles on the ice to our spot, and after digging about 3 feet of snow out of the hut I set up to fish. Well, the fish were biting, but with the wind and snow, and the open door of the hut, the heater was useless. I was dressed warm, but my holes kept filling with snow, and freezing over because of the open door, cold temp, snow, and high wind. I decided that the only thing to do was to sew up the broken door with fishing line. I straightened out a # 2 hook, flattened the barb, and using 4 lb test line doubled up, I started to sew.
Have you ever tried to sew up a flapping tent door in a 40 mph blizzard, at –5, with no gloves on? Let me tell you, using a straightened out fishing hook for a needle, the eye of the hook is awful hard to pull thru the fabric when your fingers are a block of ice! Well it took about an hour and ½ to get it done (One of my buddies helped me for a while, but had to quit when he was about froze to death outside the hut), and when it was finished I had sewed myself into the hut. Then I had to wait for the heater to thaw out the other zipper, and of course the fish quit biting at that spot while I waited.
After getting the other zipper thawed out, I decided to move out to where my friends had found the fish biting. The drive out on the lake in the morning wasn’t that bad, because we were going with the wind and the snow had let up some, but now I was ¼ ing with the wind, and the traveling was brutal. The wind was so strong it had my hut traveling along side the 4-wheeler, instead of behind it. I couldn’t see more than 20 yds. thru the blizzard, and my hands were getting cold. The snow was packing in behind my glasses, and if I closed my eyes, my eyelashes froze together, and my beard was a block of ice from my breath freezing.
After traveling about 20 minutes, I knew I wasn’t where I wanted to be, (notice I didn’t say “LOST”!!??), but I was to cold to mess with my GPS, and I was pretty sure that I was somewhere in the middle of the bay where the water was about 40’ deep. I shut down the 4-wheeler, and drilled a couple holes. I dragged my hut over the holes, started up my heater, and set up to fish. When I dropped the transducer for my Vexilar in one of the holes, it only showed 14’ of water! I knew right away that I went to far south on the bay, but wait…, Looking closer at the signal on the Vex., I noticed that the “bottom” was moving! I was in 18’ of water with a 4’ high school of perch! (I LOVE SIMCOE!!)
I couldn’t get my jig in the water fast enough, and although there were allot of dinks, about every 4th fish was over 10”, and soon I had 38 nice keeper perch! The snow died down a little, so I called my buddies over. (We use the FRS radios, to keep in touch) We all did very well on the perch, but the ride back to the trucks was the ride from hell. We were now traveling fully against the wind, and we had to stop about every 2 miles to warm up our hands on the ATV exhaust, on the 7-mile trip back to the truck. When I got back to the truck, all the electronics were messing up on my 4-wheeler, and the electric shifter must have gotten some water in it on Silver Lake, because the entire button arrangement was a block of ice. I was able to shift it manually to get it up on the truck.

On Sunday, being as how we found the ice was over 2’ thick on Sat., we drove our trucks out to our fishing spots. The only problems I had on Sunday, was that the switch on my electric auger froze up, but I was able to thaw it out on the exhaust of the truck well enough to use it.
I spent the next week at home, sewing up the hole in the hut, and fixing the bad door. I had to buy a new seat for the Honda, and I also disassembled the entire 4-wheeler so I could fill all the electrical connectors with dielectric grease, to keep the moisture out. Now I was ready for another fun weekend of fishing!
The next weekend, I invited a buddy of mine that never ice fished before. I usually like to fish in my hut alone, but this guy is allot of fun, and always good for a few laughs.
This trip the weather was very cooperative, and we were making real good time getting up there. We were driving north of Toronto on the 400 at about 5:30am, just cruising along about 70mph, listening to Hank Snow on the tape deck. I just happen to be passing an 18-wheeler, so my friend was gazing out the side window, looking at the truck. All of a sudden I saw this big black “thing” floating, and flipping thru the air coming at my truck at a combined speed of about 100+ mph. A vehicle in the oncoming traffic had lost a wheel, and tire. It had bounced over the center median, and was heading straight for our windshield! At first I thought it was going to hit right in front of my face, but it drifted to the right. It’s amazing of all you can think of in about 1/3 of a second, but I never had a chance to swerve, or yell “Look Out”. The tire hit right in front of my friend, hitting the cowling just short of the windshield, and the upper frame. It bounced back a few feet then came right back, making a pretzel out of my antenna, and exploded the right side view mirror against the passenger window, right in front of my buddy’s face! It all happened so fast that even though he was looking out the side window, he never seen the tire! The noise was unbelievable! He yelled, “What was that?” Talk about an adrenaline rush! I bet we both could have run 5 miles in about 4 seconds right then!
Well other than my buddy leaving an open container of Mousie Grubs in the motel room that night, and us having to crawl all over the floor to pick up about 100 of them in the morning (I told you he was good for a couple laughs!), it was a super trip, and we all had allot of jumbo perch to bring home. My other fishing pals told my friend that with the run of luck I’ve been having, he might want to ride home with someone else!
Well I got a new mirror on the truck, and the dent in the cowling is a good conversation piece. I guess I didn’t scare my friend that bad, as he wants to go back with me.

See you all out on the ice!

[This message has been edited by Hrdh2o (edited 11-16-2002).]

[Guest]

Back in the early "60's" when I was a kid, my dad kept a house up on Mille Lac out around Doe Island. On a stormy weekend trip with COLD temps, and lots of blowing snow, we were getting ready to head back to the cities. He asked me to take the minnow bucket over to the other houses in ice town, and see if anyone wanted them. I headed over to the first house that had a car still parked in front of it, and banged on the door, then walked in. At 10 years old I learned a lesson about ventilation that I'll never forget. The father and two sons were all dead of Co2 poisioning.

Be careful out there!

[Surface Tension]

With first ice here and everyone bitin at the bite to hit the ice. Just a reminder. Most lakes dont freeze all at once. It could be 5" in most places and 1" in another spot. Its not a gradual change either so plant your spud bar as far as you can reach. Dont go alone and dont go without the items that you will need in a rescue. Rope or better yet a Throwbag or Monkeyfist. Without a rope your just a spectater for your buddies drownding. Cleats for footing and Icepicks in case you and your buddy go in.
Backwater Eddy I had a buddy washed down river under the ice 2 years ago. He's gone.
As a White Water Oarsmen In Alaska for 3 years Ive seen some freak stuff happen.
I dont travel rivers in the winter anymore.
Have fun be safe.

[Guest]

I agree and still every year someone dies on the river snowmobiling. We all know Lake ice should never be considered safe but, river ice...that is just plain dumb. No amount of fishing or snowmobiling is worth venturing out on a river in my mind! Those of you using vent-free heaters should read the story above about CO poisoning. Spend the extra $100 to $150 and get a vented model we want to see you on the ice ALIVE...WI is in the process of banning there use in mobile homes which tells me they should not be considered safe...especially in a shack!
Be safe, fish until you die, don't die fishing!