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Story about going through the ice...


polarsusd81

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This story is true, and happened to me and my brother. Hopefully everyone who reads it will remember, and always take caution when on the ice.

When we were younger, my dad would occasionally take us with him to work when we had a day off of school. He is an HVAC installer so we were always around new construction homes. One day in late November, thinking back it was probably the day after Thanksgiving, he brought us to a house he was working on and they had a pond on the property. My brother and I were pretty fearless, being 8 and 5 at the time I think, and we were getting bored helping dad, so we went to the van and started screwing around, ended up finding an orange in the lunch box. We decided to play catch with the orange and were drawn to the ice, there was no snow and we knew it would be slippery so we figured we could have fun. My dad was there earlier in the week, but we didn't find out until it was too late that the pond had just froze over within the last 24-36 hours. My brother was on one side and I the other and we were throwing the orange back and forth across the pond. My brother mis-threw the orange one time and it landed in the middle of the pond. Neither of us knew the pond had just froze over and had been on the ice plenty of times with dad so we both walked out to meet in the middle and pick up the orange. We both got out to the orange and just as I went to pick it up the ice gave way and both of us were in over our heads in the icy water. I knew I had to get my brother out quick and that he was the lighter of the two of us, so I got him close and dunked him down and popped him up like a seal and pushed his feet once he was on his belly on the ice, he slid almost all the way back to the shore and was able to get off the ice. Then it was my turn to try to get up, but every time I got my belly up on the ice and started kicking with my feet, I went back through. This happened to me four times until I got close enough to reach the bottom of the pond with my feet. At that time, I figured my best bet was to crouch down and jump up to slide as much of my body onto the thin sheet of ice as possible, this time the ice held. All the while when I was struggling to get back up on the ice, my brother was smart enough to grab a 2x4 and carry it over and reach out with it. He planted his but on the shore and dug his feet in and told me to grab it, when I got a hold on the 2x4 he pulled me up close enough to get off the ice. We then pulled a very dumb move, instead of going in and telling our dad that we went through the ice, we went and jumped in the van to hide. Luckily our dad came to the van to grab some materials and check on us and found us soaking wet and freezing in the van. He started it up right away to get heat going on us and stripped our clothes off of us and set us both in the front seats close to the vents to warm up. He packed up his tools and came back and we left early for the day and got home so we could get warmed up by the fireplace and get some fresh clothes. It was a very scary time and I think we all did our parts to save each others lives. I helped my brother back to the shoreline and he in turn helped me, and when dad found us, he again saved us both from succumbing hypothermia by taking the right actions quickly to get us heated back up. The whole deal only went on for about 10 minutes, but those 10 minutes were the longest 10 minutes of my life.

Please remember to be careful on the thin ice, and be extra careful if you live near water and have young kids as adventurous and fearless as my brother and I once were. I will be venturing back out onto the early ice to try to pull a couple pannies and walleyes, but I am much more educated and careful in the manner in which I choose to chase the fish these days.

Thanks for reading,

Tom Dobbins

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I'm a brand new guy here, just joining a couple of days ago. I've been reading through literally hundreds of old threads just catching up, sorting through the Jiffy vs Strikemaster and Marcum vs Vexilar debates, along with the choices people make in portables and all that other good stuff. I'm up to the 343rd page of threads, so you can only imagine how many of these debates I've read. smile

I just ran into this thread, and thought it deserves a great big bump to the top.

Everyone, be careful out there! New ice is on the way, be patient and wait for it to be safe to travel on, no matter what your mode of transportation.

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ya i agree... especially with everyone really eager to get out on early ice with all this talk about cold weather and early ice, just remember, catching a couple fish is never worth your life, so just be careful when you guys are out there and make smart decisions. i really dont want to hear another story this winter about some fisherman drowning

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Welcome to the site Riich.

Tom, thanks for sharing your story and reminder about early ice. That is a crazy story, must have scared the crapola out of your parents.

I went through last year ... I was smart enough to stay close to shore (only up to my chest), but got a little too confident regarding the ice thickness. It was a good lesson on how ice thickness can vary a ton across different parts of the lake. There can be huge diffrences depending on when parts freeze, wind, snow cover, pressure cracks etc.

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Most of the lakes I fish are river fed. I went to a railroad bridge a couple weeks ago where one lake feeds intot the next downstream to get a better feel for how strong the current is and I was surprised how strong it is. I won't be ice fishing that area; maybe in Feb. Also some lakes have springs and one near me has a warm water outlet from the power plant. There are many hazzards to consider when braving early ice. Last year I was on some thin ice around thanksgiving and it wasn't cracking until I was standing over deeper water. Nothing like that feeling of stupidity realized too late.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

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