Stupid Question

early ice fishing i always wear a PFD its a smart thing to wear and if someone close by goes in :eek: you can always throw it to them

Terrific educational video and its a shame it can't be shown to more people on a regular basis. Thanks for sharing.

When I go it is usually first ice and we dont go if we dont have at least 4 inches and then when we are going out onto the lake we have a spud that we test the ice in front of us with by giving it a good poke before we move onto it. Before we get to deep water we start cutting test holes to check the condition and thickness as we move out about one every 50 foot or so till we are satisfied that its uniform. I have seen just open water in a spot on a lake that was totally frozen over with 6 inches of ice. Think it was some kind of gas or spring that caused it. But being alert to the surroundings kept us away from that area. As we were approaching that area and spoted it we could see that our weight walking on the ice was disturbing the water in the open water area. Skerry! we slowly backed away from the area and cut a long berth around it to get back to shore.

All of these are great points. But I would like to interject a very important one that I think has been left off(I'm sorry if someone already mentioned it), KEEP YOUR WITS ABOUT YOU. So many times when guys go through they almost make it impossible to be pulled out.

thanks a ton for all the info folks, that's why i love this place! (well, most of it anyway!)