Funny Ice Fishing Stories (Everyone share)

[NorthernAngler]

Thought I would start a funny story topic for everyone to share. Here's mine. When I was in High School (15 years ago) me and 2 other class buddies went ice fishing. We caught a few trout here and there. When it came time to snack on some lunch, Aaron and I packed our own lunch. Jessie was different, his mommy packed his lunch for him. So he opened his mini lunch cooler and pulled out canned Chili, now were in the hell is the micro to heat that up! We laughed for 30 mins. NOt the best story but its a start. Thanks

[IceCreeper]

Watched some moron last weekend spinning brodies on his wheeler at about 5000 rpm,it was pretty impressive until he spun a hole in the ice with his chained tires and the wheeler caught,rolled and sent him flying straight up in the air landing on his head/neck like a cartoon ragdoll.I laugh every time I think about it,moron is real lucky he didnt break his neck.

[Htech77]

Not a great story but...we were fishing como(darby) a couple of years ago(don't ask!). When we the guys in the house next to us dropped their cell phone down the hole. While the fishing was lackluster it was very entertaining listening to them try to get it out

[missoulafish]

Few years ago i was ice  fishing down the causeway with a couple buddies. Anytime we fish together and some one catches a fish they give the obligatory, in an extra deep voice,  "ooooo son, that's a nice one". We had walkie talkies as we all didn't have cell phones. I had my walkie talkie in my chest pocket, turned on, just waiting for someone to say they caught something. It was getting dark and I caught a really nice perch. I grab my forceps to dig out the hook and then lip the perch by the lower lip and peer down into its mouth and at the same time I hear " OOoOooooo SoN!" Man, that scared the crap out of me cuz it was so loud, but no one was around me and it it sounded like it was coming right out of that perches mouth. Forgot I had the Walkie talkie turned on and it was my buddy on the other end. Absolutely perfect timing..totally freaked my beans.

[heine]

I was night fishing on LMR 2 years ago with my math teacher and i kept texting some people so i just set my phone in my side pocket on my coat. My teacher wasnt catching very many so I bent over to put my vexilar in his ice hole and i saw a flash and just like that my phone was headed down the hole. The worst part about it was that i had to watch it go all the way to the bottom on my vexilar. Sad day right there

[BoonDockin]

Hooked in to a nice size fish in the process of landing it it got into my other pole so i had the brother inlaw open the bail we landed the fish and i was soo jacked i forgot the fish was all tangled in my other line i reach over and set the hook dragging the fish i just caught back in the hole gave the brother inlaw a good laugh the rest of the day

[JayHelfrich]

I walked down the Causeway Arm on Hauser to the powerlines some 15 years ago.  I got into a good bite for perch and even got a baby walleye (a first for me on that lake at that time) on the nicest day I had seen all winter.  Things were starting to get pretty wet on the ice and there was an inch or more of standing water by the time I had to leave.  As I walked back to the parking lot, one of my cheap rubber cleats broke.  Not too much of a problem till I rounded the corner and took a 25+ mph gust to the face!  There were white caps on the ice!  So there I am doing the one footed shuffle with a sled, bucket of rods and gear, a bucket of fish, and a power auger trying to get back to my car.  The Strikemaster wouldn't hold the sled down on every gust so I'd get 20' and have to re-position the auger back on the sled while holding onto two buckets that would fly away if I let go of them.  It was a cluster duck and a half.  So 2.5 hours after I started the trek back to the car I was there.  I started the car and turned on the radio to a Helena station only to find out is was 60 freaking degrees!!!  I was cold, wet, exhausted, and had to go home to a mad wife cause I was 4 hours late.  Sure am glad she's my exwife now.

Jay

[Stovepipe]

I was fishing crappie a a small dam near my house about 10 years ago.  I got rigged up one night, had my shack set up with 2 holes.  Out of one hole i jigged and also had my vexilar in.  The other hole I had a minnow/bobber rig.  After going a while without a nibble, I decided to check the bait on my minnow/bobber rig. As I was checking the bait, I noticed in my peripheral vison some activity happening in my jigging hole.  The foam float for my vexilar was bobbing up and down.  I dropped the minnow/bobber rig and grabbed hold of the transducer cable on my vexilar and started bringing in my catch.  A few seconds into the fight, I realized that I was fighting a fish using my fricken transducer cable as line.  **censored**!!  It then dawned on me that i have no idea what I'm going to haul in.  Talk about text book fish fighting.  If he wanted to run i let him.  I was feeding transducer cable out and bring it in when he tired.  What the hell do I have on was all I could think!!! Don't horse him.  I gotta see this thing.  And finally I did.  One final jerk and out of the water and into my pop up shelter was a muskrat.  So, here I am, in this confined space with a animal that does not want to be inside almost as much as I didn't want him inside.  I'm running around inside the tiny shack, juking, jiving, knocking over lanterns, heaters, minnow buckets and such, all in the hopes in finding the zipper to one of the two exits.  On at least 3 different occasions, I made attempts in running through the walls of the canvas where there is no door at all.  I think the muskrat finally figured he gave me enough excitement for one evening so he slid back down the hole and into the water.  Why is there never a video camera handy when ya need one? 

[Ice Junkie_]

I was fishing crappie a a small dam near my house about 10 years ago.  I got rigged up one night, had my shack set up with 2 holes.  Out of one hole i jigged and also had my vexilar in.  The other hole I had a minnow/bobber rig.  After going a while without a nibble, I decided to check the bait on my minnow/bobber rig. As I was checking the bait, I noticed in my peripheral vison some activity happening in my jigging hole.  The foam float for my vexilar was bobbing up and down.  I dropped the minnow/bobber rig and grabbed hold of the transducer cable on my vexilar and started bringing in my catch.  A few seconds into the fight, I realized that I was fighting a fish using my fricken transducer cable as line.  **censored**!!  It then dawned on me that i have no idea what I'm going to haul in.  Talk about text book fish fighting.  If he wanted to run i let him.  I was feeding transducer cable out and bring it in when he tired.  What the hell do I have on was all I could think!!! Don't horse him.  I gotta see this thing.  And finally I did.  One final jerk and out of the water and into my pop up shelter was a muskrat.  So, here I am, in this confined space with a animal that does not want to be inside almost as much as I didn't want him inside.  I'm running around inside the tiny shack, juking, jiving, knocking over lanterns, heaters, minnow buckets and such, all in the hopes in finding the zipper to one of the two exits.  On at least 3 different occasions, I made attempts in running through the walls of the canvas where there is no door at all.  I think the muskrat finally figured he gave me enough excitement for one evening so he slid back down the hole and into the water.  Why is there never a video camera handy when ya need one?

Now that's some funny shi%, even funnier if you have a vivid imagination like I do!!

[Ice Junkie_]

So a buddy and I were out ice fishing one night and the fishin was slow, so I decided to spin a few brodies as the ice was clear of snow and very slick. I have full time 4wd on my quad so you can actually sit in one spot and spin without moving anywhere! After I finished I asked my buddy if he wanted to try? He refused so I asked again telling him that he was missing out on some fun. After about three times he said he would give her a go! So off he went away from camp spinning, spinning and spinning. he finally came to a stop hootin and hollerin with excitement! Then he started spinning again, so fast he could hardly hold on. he kept getting closer and closer to camp when I realized he was not going to stop! At this point I could not get his attention to warn him of the pending doom. So I ran out of the way only to watch the "YARD SALE"! I still don't know why I was laughing so hard as it was all my stuff that was getting scattered everywhere, lanterns, heaters,poles, chairs,and buckets flying everywhere! He finally stopped to see the carnage everywhere! Needless to say he has not done that again, We must have laughed for an hour or more!

[FishArms]

Last year I brought some friends out fishing that had never ice fished before, and we were all having a good time catching fish and a catching a good buzz until my one friend from Texas who has no concept of "when you drop something down an ice hole, it disappears", accidentially dropped my digital camera down the ice hole in 35' of water.

I then had this really great idea to drill another hole right next to that one and dropped my aqua-vu down, sure enough there was my camera sitting on the bottom with the strap floating up.  After about a much jigging and frustration I finally hooked the strap, pulled the camera up, and it still works! 

Needless to say the camera sat in my zippered jacket pocket the rest of the day.

[Wenger]

We were doing a bit of guiding and decided to drill a hole outside the tent adjacent to one inside. Things were very slow... a clients wife was settled in, jigging  and and really wanting a fish. After cluing everyone else in I reached under the ice and grabbed her line and started running off, gave her a real exciting back and forth fight for ten minutes...but everyone was laughing so she started to twig something was wrong but could not figure out what. Everyone was rolling on the ice and we finally told her. But she started bawling which sort of killed the buzz.

We did the same hole thing another day but had a creepy green rubber halloween mask tied to an ice scoop, and slid it under the guy's hole in the tent. He screamed bloody murder and came flying out. That one turned out much better.

The crap we did when the fish were not happy....

[ChickenHawk]

Not a great story but...we were fishing como(darby) a couple of years ago(don't ask!). When we the guys in the house next to us dropped their cell phone down the hole. While the fishing was lackluster it was very entertaining listening to them try to get it out

LMAO!!!

[Smoov iced]

My Dad was fishing in MN on a small lake by the Twin Cities, lots of spearing shacks almost set on top of one another, a loud girlish scream brought everyone outside to see a grown man standing outside the broken door of his shack and a wet black lab next to him, the owners of the lab belonged one house over apparently the dog liked chasing pike. 

[Linginator]

Just a couple weeks ago we watched a snowmobiler go through the ice.  There was about a 100 yard stretch of open water and this guy had a juiced up sled that he was showing off.  Made it across, turned around and made it back.  Second attempt made it across, on the way back he lost is clutch and sunk his brand new sled.  This was a large dude and he swam to the ice and jumped out like a damn otter!  His buddy cruised over, picked him up and they warmed up with a fire and lots of booze.  A half hour before dark they decided to try to get the sled out (this part we have on video).  Pretty sure they nominated the drunkest guy there.  Pushed him out into the open water in an ice fishing sled with a kid's life jacket and a snowshovel for paddle.  He had a bent piece of rebar tied to a rope that dropped over the side of the sled and bobbed around trying to catch on the sled.  Almost dumped the sled about 6 times but somehow caught onto a ski on the sled.  They hooked up the rope to wench on a side-by-side atv and yanked it right out of there!  We were impressed, especially considering the combined BAC of their group.

[NorthernAngler]

Thanks guys, your stories are great. Keep them coming.. Funny!

[allcaughtup]

Was icefishing a couple years ago with a group of guys basically just racing for tip ups...there was a little girl with her new "puppy" 8mth old boxer full of energy...little girl is nice and so is the dog...she said the dog is really nice just dont run and you will be fine....well 2 seconds later I notice a flag pop while we are all petting the dog...I YELL TIP UP!!!!!...and the whole group of guys start running full speed throwin elbows tripping each other anything we could do to get that flag...well we are tending the tip up and I look back to see the girl being dragged by the dog across the ice in full spring towards us...had to run and save her...LOL...funniest thing I have ever seen on the ice~

[NordicJigger]

I was spearing as a young lad with my Dad and one of his buddies. The 3 of us were in a small ice house to begin with and a big barrel wood stove was in one of the corners. One of them speared a 15# plus northern in the tail and happened to basically drop it right in my lap. As I was trying to scoot back and get out of the way of the teeth and tines on the fish and spear that was basically in my face, I managed to kick that Northern right back down the hole!

Those 2 old men were so pissed at me, but I thought it was funny. All was forgiven after they managed to spear a couple more whopper Northerns without me kicking them back down the hole.

[pastaboy]

My wife is from New England and said she can handle the cold. This was about 18 years ago and my wife wanted to try ice fishing so I took her. We were on the ice for a while and nobody was doing any good so her and I started smoochin' on the ice. I figured if there was no fishin action I was gonna pass the time and have a little fun doing it. After a while I noticed that a lot of the fisherman were starting to pull away from us. I started looking around thinking maybe we were on bad ice or something and I was getting a little worried! That is when I heard one of the old timers say "Did ya see them god %$#& QUEERS KISSING?" I looked to me wife and said to her "they think we are a couple of dudes kissing!" LUCKILY my wife at the time had long blond hair down past her fanny so I told her to take her hat off and start flinging that long blonde hair around! After a bit they noticed that my wife was a "she" and not a "he" and they all came back around and talked to us and all was good! One of them actually came up to see how we were doing and slapped my wife so hard on the back it darn near knocked her off her bucket as he said "How's it going today buddy?" Needless to say, THAT was my wife's last time of ice fishing!   

[icing_perch]

Had a couple interesting experiences icefishing one of the lakes on Eielson AFB in Alaska.  The first experience was first ice in 02.  I was at work supervising the crew plowing the roads on base when I drove by the lake and saw some people fishing it so decided to run home on my lunch break and give it a whirl.  I knew ice was coming so already had everything loaded in my rig except my bait.  Got to the lake and the ice was 2 1/2-3 inches of solid clear ice.  I didn't go far off shore maybe 40-50 feet just enough to get over 5-6 feet of water.  fished for about 30 minutes and had to head back to work.  Driving through housing to check on the guys plowing snow I noticed a late 70's early 80's dodge 1/2 ton truck in a drive way that looked like they had stopped quick as they were backing up and had a little rocking action going to it, but the thing was it didn't stop so I figured someone was goofing around until I drove up closer and there was no one in the truck.  At this time I am thinking what the %*&&*%).  I start looking around and I can see trees and telephone poles swaying back and forth then I realized "earthquake"  I stopped the truck and got out to stand on the ground and it felt like I was on a boat deck on the ocean cool but scary feeling.  Turns out to be the second largest recorded quake in the interior of Alaska at 7.6 on the Richter Scale.  I was thinking to myself I wonder what it would have been like to be on the ice when this happened so went to check the ice after work.  Scary business, got to the lake and it is wide open, all the ice was now on the shoreline piled up.  Needless to say I waited until the ice was 12" before I got on it again that year.  When I did get back out there had holes drilled all over the place and was pounding 12-15 inch bows like crazy.  Had one day when I hooked into a nice fish and heard splashing coming from one of my other holes, gave a little slack in the line and I see this trout head coming out of the hole I hear splashing in.  Pull back on the rod and head disappears, give it slack and out the head pops again.  I was wondering if I should just give it enough slack to jump out the hole but finally just reeled it in.  I also had a trout chase a swedish pimple I was jigging right out of the hole and into my shack.  Crazy things happened on this lake LOL.

[spearmaster]

Was fishing Nelson Reservior with my buddies in December. We got super drunk at the bar at sleeping buffalo that night. My one buddy in particular. At 2 a.m. started making the trip for our lovely hotel room. About half way down the hall we realized our friend was missing. Looked for him for 2 hours. Couldn't find him anywhere. In our drunken state we decided he was probably fine. Woke up the next morning and found him in one of the empty rooms.

Later that night after fishing all day, we're in the bar again. I'm talking to this older feller telling him how "we had a rough night."  He looks at me and says "You had a rough night?! I woke up in the middle of the night with some kid in my bed with me!" Turns out it was my buddy.

[vicster]

Growing up in Central mt, mine involve the wind.  In high school I went to Holter with my Uncle.  We drilled some holes and set up his home made shanty.  By this time the wind had really kicked up so he had me hold down the shanty while he ran back to get some anchors.  While he was gone a big gust hit and the shanty started moving and them picking up speed.  I was spread eagle and ready to bail when it finally slid to a stop.  When my uncle got back he kept walking around the shack looking for the holes, told him they were about 100 yds  down the Lake:).
  Last year I fished  Arod during a chinook and there was about a inch of water on the ice.  First it tried to blow my sled away, then when I stood up to get the sled it started blowing the cooler I had been sitting on away.  Ended up sitting on the cooler in the sled when I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye.  The two hammerhandle northerns I had on the ice were slowly blowing down the lake.  I had forgotten my ice cleats (figures) so when I went after them holding my cooler and getting jerked around by my sled (think 12 month old labrador) I wasn't sure I would make it back.  Needless to say I threw in the towel and made it back to the rig just before spring thaw... The End

[bsharp]

A few years ago me and my dad were out fishing this lake during a warm spell (about 40 degrees) the ice was over 20" thick so we were not worried about the 3" of standing water on top of the ice. Anyways we caught a few bows and were keeping a few on the ice for dinner later that night and all of a sudden we started getting bites one after the other so we left a couple fish alive on the ice and tended to the poles because the fish were hammering everything we could get done there. After about thirty min of non stop action we were limited out and packing everything up and started looking for our fish. A few of them were right were we left them but the others were no were to be found. So we started looking around us on the ice and the fish were literally swimming away from us on top of the ice!!! No i don't know if you have ever tried to run on top of ice that ice has that much water on it but it is not easy at all. When ever you would get close to one they would try to swim even faster, so me and my dad had to corner them and put a five gallon bucket over them just to catch them and after about twenty minutes of chasing fish around the ice we finally had our limit caught AGAIN and we headed home soaking wet.

[Kilbourn]

About two years back now I was out with a few friends drinking and going for some nice Crappies. When we got home I explained to my friend that I always use one knife to take the meat off the fish and a fillet knife to take the meat off the skin. He thought this was stupid and proceeded to tell me that you only need one knife if it's sharp enough (which I know). I told him I do this because I never had to sharpen my fillet knife for over three years as it never gets dull from not seeing bones. He got crabby about the whole thing and told me to have a seat and he would cut the fish. So I grabbed another beer and sat with the guys. About three minutes later he started to complain that my fillet knife was way to dull. I walked into the kitchen in time to see him starting at the tail and attempting to saw up through the rib cage. When I pointed it out he was so ashamed that he handed me the knife and walking out of the kitchen saying "sorry dude, I feel like an idiot" It wasn't funny at first, but looking back.....It's still not funny! lol

[Bugman1964]

Years ago I had a shack out. The season was coming to an end and the warmer temps had arrived. I kept saying to my buddy that had fished with me all season that we needed to get the shack off. After about a week he said he had time to help me. There was typical spring ice thin around the edges good further out. Well we get to the shack only to find it floating with a big chunk of ice stuck to the bottom and a full open hole underneath. Buddy says just tie a rope around it and I'll yank her out with the snowmachine. So we get it all rigged up and tied to the snowmachine. I am watching the rope and I hear him throttle up. Well I see the rope get tight and the shack doesn't move. I turn my head to my buddy and the snowmachine only to see him rolling around on the ice about 20' out in front of the snowmachine. Launched him off, wish I had seen that. Time for plan "B" he says. We did eventually get the shack out.

[zimmer2]

Was fishing Nelson Reservior with my buddies in December. We got super drunk at the bar at sleeping buffalo that night. My one buddy in particular. At 2 a.m. started making the trip for our lovely hotel room. About half way down the hall we realized our friend was missing. Looked for him for 2 hours. Couldn't find him anywhere. In our drunken state we decided he was probably fine. Woke up the next morning and found him in one of the empty rooms.

Later that night after fishing all day, we're in the bar again. I'm talking to this older feller telling him how "we had a rough night."  He looks at me and says "You had a rough night?! I woke up in the middle of the night with some kid in my bed with me!" Turns out it was my buddy.

Now that is FUNNY

[Pastor B]

I am sure some of you know about the weather northern Montana has been getting, but I will tell you it has been cold up there this week!  I am a Youth Pastor, and so it turns out my day off during the week is Tuesday...I love this because there is not a lot of traffic anywhere I go to fish!  This Tuesday the weather near Beaver Creek was forcast to be -2 with 30 MPH winds... What does that silly weather guy know anyway!?  I AM GOING FISHING ON MY DAY OFF!!! So I was able to convince my buddy to come with me, and after borrowing another friends ice auger and getting some Mcdonalds we finally left Great Falls.  The entire 1hr 45min trip was filled with question marks as to if we should just turn around... huge sections where we could not see 50 ft in front of the truck, big wind gusts that tried to blow us off the road, and the pee break on the side of the road where we had to break the ice off of our "units" to continue the "flow."  We are MEN and we kept on truckin despite all of the signs!  We found the lake and a spot where we thought was "good enough" to park because no one else would be stupid enough to come out here today, and we dropped the sled and walked to a spot with some old holes and started the borrowed auger.  Suprisingly the older Stirke Master started with three pulls in negative 100 degree weather.  When I picked it up to start the first hole the entire auger bit fell to the ice...hmmm we lost the pin somewhere!  I took the pin off my Eskimo hand auger and tried to use it, but it was too small and would never work...so I started back to the truck to see if the pin was in the bed.  When I got to the truck my buddy started the auger and began drilling holes... yeah you can now see where this is going... He drilled three holes with no problem (yes he knew it wasn't the right pin in it, but he did not want to work for the holes)  I watched him drill the forth hole and when he picked up he almost fell over because the auger was half the weight he was used to... 38ft down went the auger bit...  we fished the four holes for about 12 minutes and the holes were freezing and filling with snow soo fast that we both were fishing into what looked like snow, and you couldn't even see the other holes...my hoodie froze to my face and I had to peel it off to tell him we needed to leave!  We made the long trip back to Great Falls with half a borrowed auger and a little less pride!

The one upside to the entire day though was eating at Ma's Loma cafe on our way back!  seriously the best food ever made by a human!

[Bmarler]

A buddy and I were out fishing on Georgetown lake, we made plans to stay on the ice all night in the ice hut then wake up early in the morning and start fishing. 8:00pm roles around and we decide to call it a night. I was sleeping in one of those long no sided sleds right next to the holes. Before I went to bed I had a bright idea, I would tie the fishing line to my hand and when I got a bite I would wake up and catch the fish. I forgot that I have a tendency to sleep really hard, needless to say I woke up with my entire arm down the hole and a 14" trout on the other end. Coldest night of my life.

[Skookum]

Thanks for the memory.  I was standing in a doorway with my pregnant wife in Fairbanks when that quake hit.  Biggest Longest quake I've been in.  Fished all those lakes around Fairbanks.  Wife and I were on Quartz lake in April, 4 feet of ice, 2 feet of water fishing the trout spawn.  All the locals had full sized fishing poles, and we were there with just our little ice fishing poles.  Trout would come flying by and grab the bait and take off.  If you had a long fishing pole it would get hung up halfway down the hole.  If you had ice fishing poles you had to be damn quick.   Fun day, sunshine, lots of fish and good people.

[MatCat]

My brother and I were fishing Dailey lake a few years ago, the day started cold so we turned on the Mr. Buddy heater.  As the day went on it warmed a little so my brother turned the heater down.  As most of you with these types of heaters, you need to push down then turn to light and start, well after about 5 minutes of turning the heater down, he must have almost turned it off because all of a sudden there was a loud pop and the knob from the heater was about 5 feet in the air.  After a slow arc, it landed square in his hole.  It must have been a shock, because he just sat there and stared at it for a couple seconds before he tried to rescue it, then watch it sink 15 feet to the bottom.  Good clear water too, so he got to stare at it the rest of the day when he looked down his hole.  Apparently you can't find them at stores either, we've both looked.  Checked online, but he refuses to pay 8 bucks s/h for a .25 cent knob, so it's a needle nose plyers and 5 minute fight every time he lights his heater now.