PLEASE be safe this winter:

[AndyS]

100 ft. of rope, hand spikes, buddy system, you know the deal. After last year reading about people going through the ice and not making out alive, that sux !

[Chrisk]

Originally Posted by AndyS

100 ft. of rope, hand spikes, buddy system, you know the deal. After last year reading about people going through the ice and not making out alive, that sux !

Sure it's bad, but no one should bike ride in the dark on thin ice. On top of rope, spikes and a pal you should check as you go. Ice can go from 4 to 2 inches in a few yards.

[saxmatt]

It's good to have a pair of cleats too. I know a guy who had to have shoulder surgery after taking a nasty spill while running to a flag.

[GetANet]

All good tips !!!
I nearly drowned in Davidson's Mill Pond when I was younger. I used to work in Trenton so after the weekend still having a bucket full of shiners I decided to go ice fishing for a few hours before heading to work. I made several KEY MISTAKES that day that nearly cost me my life.
1, I never told my wife i was going yet let alone where and 2, I had checked the ice a few days before and didn't have a clue how thick it was that morning. As i walked out onto the ice everything seemed good till I was about 50 feet from shore. Walking in the pitch dark at like 5 a.m. I suddenly hear geese honking and splashing as I Came up on them! Before I could turn around, I was thru the ice, As my head came back up and I started to fight for my life I realized that I was probably going to die here and now! My life flashed before my eyes and all I was thinking was "They are going to EVENTUALLY find my frozen dead body under the water!!!!!
I Believe to this day that someone wasn't ready for me yet and in my mind someone told me to stop fighting or I am going to drown.
Yea right gonna stop fighting to live?
Well finally after a few more seconds I did just that, I stopped fighting!!!When I did, I began to rest a bit and regain my composure, mean while all the water around me started to recede back into the hole and after a bit I was able to use the rough surface of the ice against my WoolRich Jacket to climb out of the hole and to safety.
That is a true story and I wanna say to all the ICE GUYS what I tell my kids CONTINUOUSLY ..... DON"T BE STUPID!!!! IT COULD COST YOU YOUR LIFE!!!!!!!!!

[FASTEDDIE29]

My father pulled me out of the frigid waters of Milton Lake in Rahway. I was 6 years old. We weren't ice fishing, just walking around feeding the ducks, taking pictures. I was standing on the wall near the damn, I slipped, next thing you know I'm screaming for my young life. Woke up naked with a wool blanket around me in the back of an ambulance. I was unconcious for 15 minutes.

Anything can happen at any given time. You can take all the precautions there is. Safety first always. Crazy things happen when you have a passion for the outdoors. Expect the unexpected!!!!

Crazy story Dale! I'm glad you pulled your ass out of that water!! Must've been one of the scariest moments of your life. Well, besides getting married of course, LOL!!!!!

TIGHT LINEZ!!!!!!!

I was playing ice hockey when i was a kid and went too close to the edge of an open area of ice........36 years ago and I will never forget it.....Got pulled out by my brother....He got close and used his hockey stick for me to grab on and get me out pulling backwards.... and luckily, there was someone in the area who offerred to drive us to our house.....my hair was frozen stiff until I got home.....lol......I sat in a bathtub for like 2 hours to defrost!!....It's funny looking back at it now, but a frigid day getting soaked isn't fun ....My situation could have been a lot worse and I was lucky..I'm not as agile as I was when I was 12 either........the memory still remains and when I do get on the hard water, I make sure the ice is THICK!!!....I still get very nervous when the ice cracks and you feel it under your feet......but it doesn't stop me from ice fishing again, as long as it is safe ice....FISH ON!!!!!!!!!

[Jigman13]

sh*t... after reading all of these posts, I'm awfully timid to even venture out on an ice fishing adventure. I think I'd wear a wet-suit under all of my gear. My hats off to all of you who successfully and carefully pound the hard water to scratch the unscratchable itch that is the disease we call fishing!

Eddie, I see so many kids running on Milton when it freezes up. It makes me cringe b/c I know damn well that they arent taking the necessary precautions in the event of the unthinkable. Glad that those of you who have experienced close encounters have ended up avoiding a bad outcome.

[kcritch]

So on the other side of this topic....First off I remember winters being much colder whan I was young. We always went ice skating and sledding down a few hills across a frozen pond and stuff like that. Once when I was around ten we went to Lake Como in Belmar (for those of you that don't know this is really a pond not a lake) to go ice skating. As we get there they have a front end loader from the township plowing the snow off the ice and using the back hoe to break holes near shore for the ducks and geese that hang around. Now I was always a chubby kid for sure but as we are walking out to skate my mother tells me...Don't go too far out because I don't want you to fall through!!! I still think...Just how fat was I that she could think I would go through ice thick enough to drive a front end loader on!!! That'll put a dent in your self confidence let me tell ya! Ture story guys I swear...My Mom is Italian Catholic so she tends to be just a slight bit over protective of her "babies". She can't help it...it's in the blood. And yes at 51 I'm still a baby evidently.

Not to make light of the situation but figured it was good for a laugh...be safe....and warm.

[phil]

in the late 80s or 90s i remember a thanksgiving snow storm , we all went sledding and i broke my finger, had to go to bayshore hospital that night, mom wasnt happy. about a week later i fell through ice on a real shallow scummy duck pond with my cast on my left hand. i was able to touch bottom but it was chest deep. my friend helped pull me out, we were both in the water and able to walk to shore by breaking ice, eventually got shallow enough to climb up. ill never forget how bad that cast smelled for the next 2 months, i think my mother and doctor conspired against me and refused to give me a new cast to punish me for my own dumb young stupidity.

[flatcreek]

Great stories guys. Dale real glad you made it otherwise I never would of had the pleasure of meeting and fishing with you. Eddie out for fifteen minute, yea that explains allot.
Now for my near death story. I grew up I High Bridge playing by the south branch , the arches (we use to jump off the top of that), white bridge just downstream of the arches. One winter when I was about 10 ( that makes it the late 50s) we were chopping big blocks of ice from the edge of the river and letting them float. We chopped one really big one and two off use jumped on it. This was between the arches and the white bridge. After we came under the white bridge the river formed a v as it became frozen completely across. As we approached this it was time to get off the ride. My buddy was closer to the edge and he jumped to the ice along the edge of the stream. When he left his end of our little ice burg, his end rose and my end went down dumping me in the center of the stream and setting me to float under the frozen part of the river. Just before I went under the ice with just my head and neck out of the water an older boy maybe 13 or 14 grabbed my collar from behind and pulled me from the water onto the ice. His name was Otto and I will always be in his dept. My corduroy pants froze stiff as a board on the 1/2 mile walk home.