Lessons from the lake: Rescued ice fishermen needed a backup plan

[Spiel]

Lessons from the lake: Rescued ice fishermen needed a backup plan

 

 

February 15, 2009

Steve Pollick / toledoblade.com

 

 

The ice fishing season on the south shore of western Lake Erie is finished, thanks to the recent warmup, rain and very high winds.

 

But some unfinished business remains, particularly in light of the bashing ice fishermen generally are taking in the court of public opinion, thanks to and shaped mainly by the national television media circus that was ramped up to nonsensical levels on a slow-news Saturday afternoon.

 

First, several points are beyond argument:

 

•Bad judgment was in play here, especially by the minority of fishermen who did not have a backup plan and had to be retrieved.

 

•No one should question the call of public safety authorities, from the coast guard to local fire and rescue departments, to institute the retrieval of stranded fishermen. They are the professionals and they face having people's lives in their hands every day.

 

•Western Lake Erie is arguably the most unpredictable ice fishing venue anywhere. It is not, say, Upper Red Lake, Minnesota, where ice is measured in feet, not inches, and whole shantytowns are set up for months at a time. Erie lies on the southern fringe of the ice fishing zone; some winters there is no season, and the weather can change so suddenly and drastically that the need for caution is paramount.

Which is why going out on a warm day with 40 mph south winds forecast was a bad move. It is no surprise that a manageable-size crack that had to be bridged suddenly grew unmanageable.

 

 

But a majority of the fishermen on the ice that day - 75 to 80 percent of them, actually, figured it out for themselves and simply moved east until they found safe passage back to the mainland between Turtle Creek and Camp Perry. They didn't need rescuing. Their actions are part and parcel of living on the ice, and most of these individuals are capable enough and well-equipped enough to do so, as their actions proved. So let's spike the all-ice-fishermen-are-jerks stereotype.

 

As for the wooden bridging of the initial crack being used by fishermen, that actually was a smart idea, astounding as that may seem to underinformed public critics. Pressure cracks and heavings always occur on ice, even on the aforementioned Upper Red Lake, Minnesota. Bridging is a common, if temporary, way to keep from beating up or wearing out the edges of a crack and to prevent it from growing wider - at least until strong winds shift the floe. So the fact that fishermen had built a bridge to cross a crack was not the issue; ignoring the wind forecast was the issue.

 

Another popular criticism floating out there is that the rescued fishermen should have been fined for the cost of their retrieval. OK, open that can of worms.

 

But then why stop with just ice fishermen? If they should be fined for bailout over bad judgment, why shouldn't everyone be fined when a fire and rescue or other public safety agency has to bail us out for carelessness, recklessness, or negligence?

 

Falling down stairs, often because of carelessness, injures tens of thousands of people

every year, many of them requiring rescue-squad calls. Many house fires are the result of negligence.

 

How many motorists imperil themselves and others - and cause rescue runs to roll - because they drove too fast for conditions or were too busy jabbering on a cell phone or wolfing a cheeseburger at the wheel? Where do you draw the line? Golfers struck by lightning because they had to get in one more hole before the thunderstorm? Skiers in an avalanche?

 

Or how about summertime boaters whose distress is caused by negligence? This is about saving lives, not about property. If you break it or lose it, you fix it, fetch it or replace it.

 

Stranded ice fishermen are a sensational story, especially for a public and a media that barely understands it, and the story usually develops at a dull time of year so it quickly becomes high profile. Admittedly, this was the biggest Erie rescue operation ever, involving 21 agencies and the retrieval of some 130 or more fishermen. But the coverage lacked perspective and at times seemed almost semi-hysterical. [Gotta boost those ratings, you know.]

 

Another thing: To say that "ice is never safe" is to utter an empty statement. Nothing is ever safe, including highways on a dry and sunny day.

 

I like the reaction of Lucas County Sheriff Jim Telb. He essentially said setting up a system of fines as a deterrent to bad ice-fishing judgment may be worth a look. But he tempered that with the observation that public safety agencies exist to get people out of jams 24/7/365, and a lot of those jams are induced by improper behavior.

 

A lot of blame gaming also is under way about what caused that unmanageable crack to widen - that it somehow was commercial shipping's or the coast guard's fault.

 

For one thing, shipping has as much right to be on the lake in winter as ice fishermen. It is not ice fishingdom's private walleye honey-hole, and a fishing license does not entitle anyone to think so. Ship traffic moves up and down western Lake Erie and the Maumee and Detroit rivers from Toledo to Detroit, only very occasionally, every winter. Pelee Passage is also periodically opened by coast guard cutters for ship traffic, again every winter. This is not new; get over it.

 

More importantly, ice moves - even 16-inch-thick, 8-square-mile floes. Just take a look at the 22 to 24-foot high ice piles on the beach at Catawba Island State Park northeast of Port Clinton. It is part of what is left of the Erie ice field after last week's windstorm pounding.

 

The forces of nature have power beyond our micromanaging. For crying out loud, Rhode Island-size chunks of Antarc-tica's ice sheet break off and float out to sea in the coldest, most barren lands on earth. Do passing barges or ice breakers cause that?

 

Another popular myth circulating among angling circles these days is that fishermen already pay their own way for search and rescue because $2 of every fishing license is designated for that. That is nothing but a six-pack fairy tale. Public safety agencies are funded by general taxes, not fishing licenses.

 

In the end we dodged a bullet here and perhaps those who need to learn something from the experience will have learned something. To think before acting. To have a backup plan. And not venture onto Erie ice with 40 mph winds at their backs on a warm Saturday.

[Joeytier]

Great read!

[osmondrs]

Thanks for an excellent analysis, Spiel... now, only if I can get my wife to read it & quit thinking I'm acting suicidal by getting on the ice 'after what happened' !!