Ice fishing must be the extreme version of fishing.
Regular fishing is relaxing, and is usually done from the safety of a boat or a dock. Ice fishing is also known to be therapeutic in its own way, as long as the ice is thick enough. If the ice is thick enough, ice fishing can it be great. Proof of that can be found in the viral video of some guys (who were just being dudes) that set up a hot tub out on the frozen water and slammed beers as they fished.
That’s a great example of doing ice fishing the right way, but unfortunately, there are plenty of stories that highlight ice fishermen (and fisherwomen) doing it the wrong way.
In this video out of Nebraska, an ice fisherman went out onto some frozen ice that, with hindsight, probably should have been vetted a little bit more. It was a cold January day out on the ice, though the sun was causing some of the ice to melt, which eventually led to one man falling through the ice.
Not only did the fisherman fall through, he also took his $2,600 fish finder down with him. It was a complete disaster, but some good Samaritans who were fishing nearby jumped into action to help.
Travis McIntosh was forced to think quickly in order to save the man in distress, and smartly though to grab the long bag for the ice-fishing tent that he had nearby, as he told Outdoor Life:
“His older brother started running towards him, and my buddy Jake started running towards him. But I ran towards the bag for my ice-fishing tent instead.
I was like, ‘Well, I don’t have a rope with me, but if someone were to fall in I can always grab that bag. I’d said that to myself that morning. I remembered that thought and grabbed the tent bag before I went out on the middle of the ice.”
Once he worked his way out to the broken spot of the ice, McIntosh slowly inched towards the man and was able to utilize the fishing tent as a makeshift rope to help pull the man to safety.
Afterwards, those that were fishing the frozen pond came up with an idea to save the man’s fish finder. One man hopped in a kayak and used two hammers as icepicks to work his way out to the hole in the ice. Once he made it out there, he was able to retrieve the expensive fish finer, which allegedly still worked after being dropped into the water.
The entire harrowing rescue was caught on camera, and can be seen in the video below:
