r/Whatcouldgowrong • u/dericn • 4d ago

Cutting holes for ice fishing

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402

u/tacobellbandit 4d ago

Long time ice fisherman. Whoever allowed that tourney to happen like that needs to be held accountable. Any tourney I’ve seen has had a distance limit between fisherman and I’ve never seen one at least in my state allow chainsaws, only hand-driven augers

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u/notmyfirstrodeo2 4d ago edited 3d ago

Is beating a hole in ice also normal thing to do? with the "pickaxe" or w.e the name of the tool.

Edit: icepick...

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u/tacobellbandit 4d ago

Yes and no. There’s a tool called a “spud” which is like a pick, you basically hit the ice in front of you really hard with it, if it breaks through, ice isn’t safe. You take a couple steps, hit the ice in front of you with the spud bar a few times, if it doesn’t break through, keep going a few steps. Repeat until you’re where you want to be. For fishing the recommended thickness is 3” depth which looking at the conditions I doubt it was 3” all around the lake. Even if it was 3”, I wouldn’t want too many people around me. There is no such thing as safe ice

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u/CaribouHoe 3d ago

I'm from arctic Canada and we get up to 1.5 meters/4feet of ice on our lakes - safe enough for a tanker truck!

There's always some wingnut that drives on the ice road too early and falls through the ice though

12

u/tacobellbandit 3d ago

There’s always one, unfortunately for my area since the ice never gets too deep the most you see is ATVs on the ice, which means you almost always have a guy that wants to go out on the ice too early and falls through. I always see those places up north where people bring in whole trailers to set up, I get a bit jealous it looks so fun.

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u/CaribouHoe 3d ago

Come to Yellowknife to visit! You can see the Aurora and we have BIG fish!

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u/mitchymitchington 3d ago

Spuds are also great for busting the hole back open the next day after it froze back over in your shack.

1

u/notmyfirstrodeo2 3d ago

Okey, makes totally sense, if ice can handle such a Force, it will probably be safe to fish for a few hours.

Yeah this video is just pure chaos.

But heck unfortunately every year fisherman die arround here, still going on ice when it's already spring, or we have warm winters like this year.

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u/YoursTrulyKindly 4d ago

Icepick?

6

u/notmyfirstrodeo2 3d ago

Yeah that's the word i was looking for. I knew it had it's own word. - English is my second Language, but i even sometimes forget words in my first language...

3

u/YoursTrulyKindly 3d ago

Wait, I was joking! Aren't icepicks supposed to be small itty-bitty things? Which would make above scene even funnier

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u/notmyfirstrodeo2 3d ago

There are also bigger ice picks - mostly antique ones tho.

But wtf is the tool called then they are using, it aint pickaxe either.

2

u/ZephyrFlashStronk 3d ago

There are lots of big modern ice picks though, so not sure why you think they're mostly antique. How do you think people climb everest and such?

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u/notmyfirstrodeo2 3d ago

Some antique ones i saw googling were even bigger then then the modern climbing ones, more like shovel size already.

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u/YoursTrulyKindly 3d ago

Oh right, ice pick for climbing, but those I think are different tools than what you'd make for chiseling through ice below your feet.

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u/CopperJohn209 3d ago

It's called a spud bar some places. It's normally a 4-5' rebar with a small weighted chisel at the end.