Posted on 03/26/2009 4:06:09 PM PDT by JoeProBono
We have a candidate for the Darwin Award.
He hasn't won it yet, but he has to be in the running as a potential candidate.
Up in Oshkosh, Wis., it is sill cold and the lakes are still frozen, for the most part.
But this is now official spring and the frozen north is beginning to thaw. At least partially.
It is also a part of the country where ice fishing is popular. For those not familiar with the sport, it involves going onto the ice of a frozen lake, chopping a hole through to the water and then sitting there, usually on a chair, waiting for the fish to bite.
In some areas, people build ice fishing shacks near their favorite holes to have a place to warm up and keep their fishing gear.
Liquid libations are at times involved, although that is not a universal custom.
Many people forsake the sport by this time of year because of the dangers the melting ice presents.
But not everyone.
In the case of one dedicated angler, he got out onto an ice slab in Lake Winnebago near Oshkosh, Wis., to go ice fishing.
According to the Associated Press, this guy used a ladder to cross open water to reach the ice slab about a quarter of a mile from shore.
That is either a really long ladder - presumably an extension ladder with a lot of extensions - or he went from slab to slab until he reached the desired location.
I suppose if the ladder floats, he could have paddled it out to the slab. But this is Wisconsin in March. With the water temperatures what they are, if he had tried that particular mode of transportation, he probably would already be a recipient of the Darwin Award.
By the way, for the uniformed, the Darwin Award is an informal prize that is awarded to those who find particularly inventive, bizarre or just plain stupid ways to remove themselves from the gene pool.
In any case, someone must have seen him out there, casting about for fish, and presumed he was in need of rescue.
That person presumed wrong.
But that was unkown at the time.
What was done at the time was that the Winnebago County Sheriff's Office was called.
Concerned about the danger this poor soul was in, the cops passed the alert onto the Oshkosh Fire Department. The Fire Department sent a rescue boat to save this stranded angler from death, or at least a severe chilling.
He didn't think he needed saving.
And he was not interested in leaving that floating ice slab.
Not in the slightest.
The fish were biting and he wasn't going to pass up on such good fishing - the danger of drowning in freezing water not withstanding.
Now that is what I call dedication.
Or you can call it something else, depending on your point of view.
A ice fisher parked his truck in the middle of the lake and got out with his dog.
He lit and threw a stick of dynamite as far as he could to make a hole in the ice.
The dog was very happy about this new game and ran like lightening to retrieve the stick. He gets it and starts darting back.
The guy grabs his gun from the truck and starts firing to keep the dog away. This scared the dog so he decided to hide from the thunder in the only place he could.
Under the truck.
Well, at least the guy saved hid gun.
I think Mythbusters did an episode on that.
Officially the myth is BUSTED as the ice is too thick for the dynamite to get through…we just end up with a dented SUV and a dead dog.
FWIW, they didn’t actually blow up the dog!
IIRC they tested it in parts: 1) To see if the dynamite would blow a hole in the ice 2) To see if the dog would fetch the (unlit!) dynamite and 3) To see what the dynamite would do to the car. The ice survived; the car didn’t.
Oh, and about the beer in the other thread...Finnegan's Irish Amber is the best, Pig's Eye is cheap but good.
Leinie Bock from Wisconsin beats all MN beers except Finnegan's.
Cheers!
Those boys are in trouble. That’s an awfully small cooler.
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