Close call but ended well! Pic heavy

[Bill Dance]

Well the first trip into this lake was a lot of blood sweet and tears. You know when you see this in your truck it can get interesting.


The first day my secondary clutch seized because of weight and snow depth. We made it back to camp though.













Coming back to camp after the first day. Whew lots of pushing and shoveling. The second day was more of the same but it was on the lake. We decided to break trail with no skimmers on behind so we traveled light. Got right to where we were going to fish. Awesome let’s go back and get the skimmers! Then it happened stuck from 12:30 pm to 9:30 pm. Both my wife and my buddy Steve had got their boots soaked. We tried to make it to shore but the slush and 4 feet of powder was making it impossible. We got to the point where it was 4:30 pm and we all agreed we need to start a fire to get warm and dry out boots. We all thought that we were going to spend the night on the lake and the temperature was going to -30c. It was not looking good. At 9:30pm we were running out of wood and there was no more that we could see in the dark. We decided to get the snowmobiles turned around and head out the way we came as we hope the colder temps would harden the ice up enough not to get stuck. It was do or die. It worked but when we got to the land we were breaking through the snow and got stuck 3 or 4more times. I just about said screw it and was ready to give up when my wife told me to keep going. I was never so glad to see the trailer again. We skipped supper and went bed. Needless to say we didn’t try to go back in the next day.









So remember boys and girls be safe and be prepared.

[tigrr]

Quite the adventure there Bill Dance.  Thanks for all the pictures of it.  I can't go anywhere near my fishing spot due to 101 1/2 inches of snow fell here.  Be prepared takes on a whole new meaning.

[ianwuzhere]

that's crazy amount of work- diehard icefisherman rite there.. 
the spring and warm easier travelling is coming soon.

[IceDrisher]

Wow that is a great story, you guys must have getting pretty worried once the temps started dropping like that. Just a thought - do you guys ever carry snowshoes with you? As a non sled owner, I snowshoe in to a lot of spots where there is a lot of snow and slush and they are very effective for staying on top. Depending how far you guys were from the trailer, would snowshoes have allowed you all to get back safely without the snowmobiles? Just a thought, maybe a good idea to have them along on an adventure like that!

[Bill Dance]

Snowshoes is a good idea but not for this application as it was way to far to snowshoe plus we would have still get our snowmobiles. Another thing is I can’t seem to get a pair of snowshoes to fit my size 12 boot and 300+ lbs of me.

[IceDrisher]

Ya I hear you, Bill. They don't seem to make snowshoes that will fit our big waterproof boots! I have a pair of the giant Kamik boots that are lined rubbers that are good to -70. Awesome boots, totally necessary for when there is slush, but they are never going to fit into any of the snowshoe bindings that I have come across. Someone should design snowshoes that would work for what we do up here!

[ianwuzhere]

I have a pair of Kamik Goliath rubbers, thick and big, be tight in the snowshoe bindings, but the Muck arctic sport boots fit with tons of room..  prolly gonna be headin out in a lil bit snowshoeing again, can walk rite on top of all the snow rite now, fall thru very little.. Mite even be better today with -8c outside rite now.. Snowshoes always good to bring if lotsa slush on lakes too..