At this very moment, the town I live in is pretty much shut down. Snow in amounts I don’t like along with winds I hate even worse are arriving later today.
The pheasants are getting a huge reprieve from hunters that would normally be chasing them until the very end. The snow depths, on the other hand, are giving them a different kind of challenge.
It is amazing how wildlife can survive in conditions that I and every other human would perish in. God’s creatures are certainly resilient.
With the pheasant hunting coming to just about a standstill, ice time is now on the minds of many.
Ice and I get along OK, but when it comes to taking chances, I am the very last one to do so.
First ice is like a magnet to many ice anglers who know the fishing success is normally the best as soon as conditions allow for travel on hard water.
When I was much, much younger, I would go ice fishing with a float tube. This is an inflatable tube that will float you in open water. They are often used to reach fishing places where you could not take a boat. If I fell through the ice, I would just float in the whole until another member of the group could pull me out. My float tube is still in the shed, but I have not used it as a safety device in more than 30 years.
Maybe as I got a lot older, I came to the conclusion that no fish was worth risking your life for. There are charts all over that give you a reasonable clue as to when it is safe to traverse hard water with different methods of travel: 3 inches for foot traffic, 6 inches for AVTs and side-by-sides, 8-10 inches for smaller cars, and 12-16 inches for larger trucks.
A longtime friend of mine was fishing on Mille Lacs Lake years ago and decided to relocate. He took a 9-mile drive cross country across the middle of the lake to the north end. He was driving a 1-ton Ford diesel truck pulling an enclosed hard house behind. He made his own trail and was not following other tracks. How one has this much confidence is beyond me. He made if with no problems, but it was a risk I would never have taken even in my most courageous age category.
In my current world, when others are driving big trucks and fish house rigs, I am confident that I can follow along in my Ranger side-by-side. I have a set of tracks on this rig, and the tracks spread out the unit’s weight footprint over a much larger area. They are also almost unstoppable when it comes to snow. I drove this rig last week up on top of an 8-foot-deep drift, and when I opened the door, the tracks had only sunk into the snow about 3 inches.
The one condition that a tracked side-by-side is vulnerable to is slush. A fishing guide friend of mine from Wisconsin was guiding some folks on a lake near Hayward, and as they were traveling along about 20 mph, the rig fell through the frozen crust into about 16-18 inches of slush. By the time the rig came to a stop, the slush was pushed up in front of the rig and was as high as the roof.
The occupants stepped out and immediately filled their boots with freezing cold water. If not for the other two rigs that were traveling with them, this could have turned into a life and death situation. All the rigs had heaters and it took some considerable time to ferry everyone back to the safety and warmth of their vehicles that were 6 miles away. As this effort was underway and by the time the process was finished, the first rig had frozen solid where it sat.
Needless to say, the damage done to remove the first frozen in time side-by-side left it almost a total loss. The water was 4 inches over the floor boards. Other than some monetary loss, everything else turned out fine.
One of my most concerning reasons not to drive my truck on the ice is my dogs. When I travel, I almost always travel with my dogs. I could never forgive myself if the truck ever fell through and all my dogs in the dog box topper mounted on the back were to drown.
Ice conditions vary from lake to lake and even from place to place on the same lake. Heavy snow amounts weigh down the ice, and slush becomes more prominent. Snow also insulates the ice from the cold temperatures and makes ice creation much slower.
I love to spear pike and am about to start doing so, but please use all of the common sense you have or can borrow to be safe doing what you love. No fish is worth risking your life for.
Scott Rall, Worthington, is a habitat conservationist, avid hunting and fishing enthusiast and is president of Nobles County Pheasants Forever. He can be reached at scottarall@gmail.com. or on Twitter @habitat champion.