Have you ever gone ice fishing and fallen in or gotten lost?  

When I lived in Northern New York, I went with my husband out on Lake George to ice fish. My husband drilled the holes in the ice for us to put our lines in. He drove us out on the lake. We were having a great time, it was below zero that day. We had been there all day, and not much was biting the whole day. We were often times getting Northern Pike, but nothing much was biting. We had three lines in the ice and the light was starting to fade as the sun was going to be going down soon.

As luck would have it, all three lines (tip-its) were jumping like crazy, they all had fish on them and it was getting dark soon. We scrambled to get the fish out, the whole in the ice was freezing over some and it caused us to work like crazy to get the lines up and the fish out.

By the time we got done it was dark. It was black, and we couldn't see shore. The vacationers had gone, since Lake George is pretty seasonal for tourists... so there were no lights on that we could see.

It was so dark we had lost where we had parked the car. We lost our bearings. It's dangerous just to wander out there on the ice without being able to see, because the ice does not freeze evenly in places and in some places it actually buckles up and make a cravas, and we could have easily fallen and gotten hurt or even fallen into a thinner patch of ice. There are fault lines in the ice, and you need to see where they are, so you can jump over them, because they can be a weak spot and you could fall in.

Well, like it said, it was dark. We could not even see our hands in front of our faces, it was so dark. We couldn't even see where we had the lines in after we took them out. We had to decide if we were going to stay put or if we were going to walk and try to find our way to our car.

We opted to walk. Remember the craks... we could not see. I was so scared of falling in and being lost under the ice. I'm so afraid of drowning. My husband felt something as we were walking, he bent down and it was a big stick. He used it like a cane, and tried to feel for rough places that may be heaved up ice of a fault. When he thought we were at one, he would jump, and he told me to jump. I froze. I couldn't jump, but he kept saying come on.. you can do it.

I was crying hysterically. we didn't have a flash light or anything. Not even a match to light to see where we were. Imagine being blind where there are faults and crevases and thin ice. My husband started yelling, "Hello... Help".. "Help".. over and over. Then we would listen.

Hours passed and we crept along not knowing where we were. My husband continued to yell and so did I and then we would listen. A dog started barking. We were so relieved, because we knew we had to be near some camp or home. We still couldn't see. "Hello!" over and over.... listening. Then we heard a faint "hello". and we started screaming "we're lost!" Dog barking.... a faint voice, "Hello.....anyone out there?" We are screaming "We are lost!"... he said, "follow my voice... you are ok." He kept talking and we kept inching toward it. Then we saw a flash light shining in the distance. It might have been a not quite a half mile away.

We were so cold, but we kept inching toward the light, trying to feel our way on the ice. He kept talking to us and we kept coming. He then started walking towards us as our voices came closer to him. When he reached us, he said he was camping out in the camp grounds because he too was a fisherman, but had 'sense enough to pull up steaks before dark'... we laughed and cried. He walked with us back to his camp, his light showing us the way. We spent the night with that man that night. And in the morning he drove us out on the lake to find our car.

I got a small ice injury that night on my toes. To this day I cannot stand to get my feet cold... but thank God we were safe and did not fall in.

Does anyone have a story about getting lost in the dark or have you ever had an experience like this? Needless to say, I would never go out on ice again for fear of getting caught in the dark.

Please feel free to leave your experiences.



I'm crying as I write this, because the memory is so vivid, like it is still happening.