Ice Fisherman are Crazy

[Sapphire Silk]

Nope, scared him off good and proper.

A responsible ice fisher has a fish house or some other way of providing heat. Only a moron goes outside to sit on a frozen body of water without providing some source of getting warmed up or keeping warm. They even have the now so you don't have to have a wooden shack!

I've been ice fishing, in Saskatchewan about as far north as you can go, in the middle of winter. And yes, it was bitchin' cold. We bundled up really well, and went out onto the lake by snowmobile: me, a college friend, and her Native brother in law. We spent two days in a row out on the ice fishing all day and didn't have any shelter at all.

The skies were clear, no wind, just cold. We caught a heck of a lot of fish, too It was incredibly fun.

[Victory Sabre]

Whenever I hear about ice fishing, I think of the movie Grumpy Old Men, without fail.

Has there been any really crazy ice fishing stories? Even the drunk ones?

Oh, my, do I ever.

Ice fishing on Red Lake. -20 F windy, and have to go. Just imagine going in that situation. Not fun.

Lake of the Woods - fishing was so bad, I yelled at my friend for throwing a 6 inch sauger back. We had no other food. We were so happy to be be brought in the next morning.

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

Having lived in Minnesota and being an avid ice fisherman myself, I can say that the minimum thickness as suggested by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is 4 inches for most activities involving foot traffic, ice fishing included. 5 inches for bring in an ATV (to pull your shelter), 8-12 for a car and 13 and up for a medium truck.

And I stuck to those guidelines. Anything less than 4 inches and I stayed off the ice. It's too @#$%ing cold there in the winter as it is without falling through the ice and freezing one's nards off.

Besides, I did that once and don't need/want to do that again. No I didn't fall through the ice, I took the Polar Bear Plunge once for charity. Jumped into the water and was pulled right out. I hate coffee but damned if I didn't drink three cups that day.

[rapana1]

Whenever I hear about ice fishing, I think of the movie Grumpy Old Men, without fail.

I think of Big Bang Theory.

[Ghel]

I've lived in northern Minnesota half my life, and I still haven't been ice fishing. I can count on one hand the number of times I've walked out on a frozen lake.

It's been a really mild winter, and that's probably why I haven't seen any ice houses (wooden shack on a lake, as others have described upthread) out on any of the lakes I pass by on the way to work. Almost every spring, I see at least one ice house halfway fallen through the ice because somebody didn't take it off the lake before the ice started to thaw.

The sledders (snowmobilers) around here are crazy, too. They'll go out on any amount of ice, then "skip" over open water. For instance, if there's a river feeding a lake, and the ice hasn't frozen there, they'll deliberately drive their "sled" over that area. It's no wonder we have at least one sledder die every winter in this area. (Although some run into trees, rather than fall into lakes.)

[Cooper]

I guess the local homeowner's association picked up on the fact that people are heading out on our lake way too soon. (Note, I'm not on one of the big lakes. this lake is about 660 square feet, so we don't have a dedicated cost guard or anything like that.) There was one guy who offered up his number so people could call him if something happened after they called 911. (I hope he hopes nobody plans on taking him up on that offer.)

Another said that an air horn should be part of the equipment they bring out.

The thing that amuses me about this, is 1, the guy that offered to go pick people up is either very selective on who he rescues, or he's just a lying two-faced jerkface. Seeing as he lives at the same part of the lake as me, and when my boat broke down on the way home from work, his response was not to attempt to help me, but instead to call my father and scream at him that I was about to touch his precious floating dock and he better come get me now.

The other thing that amuses me is that only like, 100 people see the page these guys are out on, and these are the 100 people that live on the lake. I'd say at least 25% are summer-only. The rest, I would hope, wouldn't need it, as I'd hope none of the locals would be out there right now.

Basically if somebody falls through, they have to hope somebody notices. My marina actually saved someone by proxy that way. A guy asked us if he could get his boat that day. We had nothing better to do, because nobody had really started asking yet (I think the ice had just broken, or maybe had only broken on one of the few lakes we served.) Turns out, when a guy in a canoe fell into the dangerously cold water, he was the only one on his little lake that had a boat to get the guy.

[lordlundar]

I'm reminded of a Jeff Foxworthy routine where he talks about he was up in Minnesota or Wisconsin or one of those northern states where it gets really cold in the winter time. Some fans invited him to go ice-fishing with them.

Foxworthy: "Thanks very much, but I'm not sure I want to be that cold."
Fans: "Oh, it's not that cold. We build a big bonfire out on the lake."
Foxworthy: "...and you call us stupid in the South?"

If done right it can work. Basic phyics indicate that heat does rise after all.

That said, I've dealt with a lot of ice fishermen in my life and I have to agree with Mr. Foxworthy's assessment.

[Chromatix]

A long time ago, during the Little Ice Age, there were ice fairs held on the Thames. Yes, the large tidal river in the middle of London.

And they built bonfires.