Ice fishing season used to end the last day of February. However, things changed around 1975, and there was no end to the ice fishing season. So, a lot of years, we got another week or 10 days to ice fish.
In 1989, we had a lot of ice — around 2 feet thick — on the lakes.
About March 10, it had been real cold the night before, and I had around 18 shiners (for bait) left. I didn’t want them to go to waste, so I decided to go ice fishing one more time for the season.
Off I went, traveling light, with my gear in a five-gallon plastic pail, my ice chisel and a folding lawn chair.
I got out to my favorite fishing spot around 8:30 a.m. — still cold out — set out my five fishing tilts, relaxed in my chair and waited for some action. It started warming up, and by 11 a.m., I took off my snowmobile suit, I caught three keeper bass and ate my lunch. About 1 p.m., it started getting really warm — probably about 60 degrees — and the surface of the ice started getting “punky” and slushy.
I made the executive decision that it was time to get off the ice. I picked up my tilts, put the snowmobile suit back on (easier to wear it than to carry it), threw the lawn chair over my back on the chisel and headed for shore. Everything went fine until I got about 75 feet from shore. Then I was swimming. My first thought was, “A fine mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Ollie.”
Luckily, I still had my ice chisel, which hadn’t fallen through the ice. I pushed the pail ahead of me, dug the tip of the chisel in the ice and pulled myself up. The ice broke, and I was back in the water. I did this same maneuver about three more times, and finally I was lying on the ice, exhausted. I crawled to shore and looked back. The lawn chair remained on the ice near the hole. Lake Whitehall gained a chair that day.
I stood up — wow, about 75 pounds heavier! I struggled to my truck, started it up and turned the heater to full blast. I stripped down to my long underwear bottoms and T-shirt, got back in the truck, warmed up a while, then drove home.
After taking a hot shower, I spread out my snowmobile suit on my bench in the garage. I then called the police and told them the hole in the ice and the lawn chair on Lake Whitehall was from me, and I had gotten out OK!
When my wife got home, she said, “What a good idea to wash your snowmobile suit after your last day of ice fishing for the season.”
It took my a few weeks to tell her that I was in the snowmobile suit when I “washed it.”
This is the perfect time to tell everyone to never, never venture onto the ice alone. I was very lucky!
A very Jack London-esque story (read To Build a Fire). Your outcome was better.