Behind the Badge - Ice Fishing in a Boat?
Ice Fishing in a Boat?
District Game Warden Andrew Dahlgren
As I was recently reading a coworker’s article about the dangers of thin ice, it took me back seven years when I was patrolling around Lamoure checking to see if anybody was ice fishing.
The lakes were just starting to freeze over, and the early ice anglers were out on Lake Lamoure that featured 5 inches of ice.
After checking the anglers, I headed north to see if there were still ducks and geese out on Twin Lake or if it had iced over.
When I got up to the south side of Twin Lake the birds were gone as the lake was mostly iced over. As I was turning to leave, something out on the ice caught my eye.
There was a big blocky object about a half mile north of my location and a pickup parked on shore. Curiosity got the better of me, and I drove to the pickup.
As I got closer, I could tell that there were two individuals sitting in a johnboat on the ice.
Not believing my eyes, I grabbed my binoculars and double-checked.
They waved at me and resumed fishing.
At this point, I had to find out who had to fish so badly that they took a boat onto the ice.
I sat in my truck and worked on reports as the two anglers finished their day.
When the two started packed up, I paid close attention because I wanted to see how they were going to get this boat off the ice.
As one of the anglers gingerly got out of the boat on the far side, I began getting a little nervous as I was not excited to go out on thin ice to rescue someone.
Fortunately, the angler on the ice began running as fast as he could pushing the boat back to shore. As they got closer, I could see the angler in the boat had a smile from ear to ear.
When they got to shore, I recognized them as two guys I routinely check fishing. I asked them how thick the ice was where they were fishing and they said 2-3 inches.
I shook my head and asked them if it was worth it. They laughed and showed me seven walleyes and made it clear that they thought it was worth it.
As I was getting ready to leave, the little devil on my shoulder kept pointing out that they were in a boat.
So, as the guys were loading their equipment into the pickup, I asked to see two life jackets.
Both men looked at me and then at the boat and back at me.
The smiles were replaced with confusion.
With as straight of a face as I could muster, I explained that they were out in a vessel on the water and that Coast Guard regulations required that there be a life jacket for each occupant in the vessel.
As one of them admitted that they did not have life jackets and that he would take the ticket, I laughed and told them I was kidding.
I did suggest that if they were going fishing the next day it might not be a bad idea to throw a couple life jackets in the boat.