Travis McIntosh had snagged some leftover minnows from the ice fisherman minutes earlier than he fell via the ice
Travis McIntosh (left) used the bag for his ice-fishing tent to tug the angler out of the water and onto the ice. {Photograph} courtesy Travis McIntosh
The kindness of strangers got here full circle in Nebraska final month when a great Samaritan rescued a fellow fisherman who crashed via the ice. The unknown angler had simply shared some minnows together with his neighbor, Travis McIntosh, when the person broke via the ice. McIntosh hauled the angler from the frigid water utilizing the tent bag for his ice-fishing shelter. After saving the angler’s life, McIntosh additionally helped recuperate the costly fish finder he dropped when he fell in. Snippets from the rescue had been captured on video by McIntosh’s mates, who had been with him that day.
The incident happened close to Plattsmouth on Buccaneer Bay, a small sandpit lake off the Platte River. McIntosh, 32, explains that he’s lived on the shore of the personal lake since he was 11. He’s ice fished each winter since then however says it’s been an particularly poor hardwater 12 months in Nebraska.
“We have already got open water proper now on many of the lakes,” McIntosh tells Out of doors Life. “Particularly the lake we had been on. It opened up inside two weeks of that accident occurring.”
He says the situations had been already a bit sketchy the morning of Jan. 28, when he went out on the lake together with his girlfriend and two different mates. After establishing their tent on ice that was 5 to six inches thick, they caught just a few respectable bass. By mid-morning, nevertheless, McIntosh observed water pooling on the floor the place the solar was hitting the ice. So, the group moved their tent to a thicker spot and began catching crappies.
“We’d had a reasonably good day by round midday, so I made a decision to order a pizza,” he says. “There have been two youthful gents who’d been fishing on the other facet of the lake for about an hour, and I used to be prepared to depart and go get the pizza after they yelled at us, ‘We’re leaving! Do you guys need some minnows?’”
After thanking the 2 males, who turned out to be brothers, McIntosh and his mates used the minnows to catch just a few extra crappies. Minutes later, he seemed throughout the lake to see the youthful brother strolling throughout a thinner part of ice close to the boat ramp. McIntosh went again to jigging reside minnows, and when he seemed up once more, the angler had fallen via the ice. All he might see was two palms waving simply above the icy floor.
“His older brother began working in direction of him, and my buddy Jake began working in direction of him. However I ran in direction of the bag for my ice-fishing tent as an alternative,” McIntosh says. “I used to be like, Properly, I don’t have a rope with me, but when somebody had been to fall in I can at all times seize that bag. I’d stated that to myself [earlier] that morning. I remembered that thought and grabbed the tent bag earlier than I went out on the center of the ice.”
By the point McIntosh obtained there, the angler had already dropped the Panoptix fish finder he was carrying when he fell via. He additionally had a tenting chair in a bag that was wrapped round his neck.
With the older brother holding McIntosh’s hand, they fashioned a two-man chain whereas McIntosh threw the roughly 7-foot-long tent bag towards the outlet within the ice. The angler grabbed ahold of the bag, and so they slowly pulled till he might crawl throughout the lake’s floor. McIntosh yelled at him to maintain crawling, however the man didn’t pay attention (or didn’t hear him) and stood up as an alternative.
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“He actually fell via the place I used to be kneeling to tug him out the primary time,” McIntosh says. “So I gave the bag to his brother, and now we’re sort of reversed. I helped pull, and by the point we lastly get [the guy] out of the water [again], he’s shivering.”
McIntosh realized that the 2 brothers (whose names he by no means caught) had gotten permission to fish the personal lake from a landowner there. After calling the landowner, McIntosh went again for his ATV and drove the shivering angler to the landowner’s home, the place he took a heat bathe. Then McIntosh ran residence to pay the pizza supply one that’d been ready at his door.
“I went again out on the ice and dropped off the pizza, and we obtained a pair items in us as a result of we had been ravenous. However then I went to assist the older brother, as a result of me and him had seen the Panoptix nonetheless floating in the course of the lake,” McIntosh says. “That’s like $2,600 for that little fish finder.”
Not eager to danger one other fall, McIntosh got here up with a intelligent approach to recuperate the fish finder. He borrowed a neighbor’s kayak and grabbed two straight-claw hammers from his storage. The older brother then hopped into the boat to distribute his weight throughout the ice, clawed his approach throughout the lake utilizing the hammers as ice picks, and retrieved the fish finder from the open gap within the water. In the meantime, McIntosh says the youthful brother who’d fallen within the lake made a full restoration. He wasn’t exhibiting indicators of hypothermia or frostbite, and the 2 brothers drove residence to Lincoln that afternoon.
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“I talked to him later that day and he stated [the fish finder] turned on. It nonetheless labored.”
