Travis McIntosh caught some leftover minnows from the ice fisherman minutes before he fell through the ice
Travis McIntosh (left) uses the bag for his ice-fishing tent to pull the angler out of the water and onto the ice. Photo courtesy of Travis McIntosh
The kindness of strangers was in full force in Nebraska last month when a good Samaritan rescued a fellow fisherman who fell through the ice. The unidentified angler had just shared some minnows with his neighbor, Travis McIntosh, when the man fell through the ice. McIntosh pulled the angler from the frigid water using a tent bag for his ice-fishing shelter. After saving the fisherman’s life, McIntosh also helps recover the expensive fish finder he dropped when he fell. Snippets from the rescue were captured on video by McIntosh’s friends, who were with him that day.
The incident occurred near Plattsmouth in Buccaneer Bay, a small sandpit lake off the Platte River. McIntosh, 32, explained that he has lived on the shore of the private lake since he was 11. He has been ice fishing every winter since then but said it has been a tough hardwater year in Nebraska.
“We have open water now on most lakes,” McIntosh said Outdoor life. “Especially the lake we passed by. It opened within two weeks of that accident.”
He said conditions were already a little hazy on the morning of Jan. 28, when he went out on the lake with his girlfriend and two other friends. After setting up their tent on ice that was 5 to 6 inches thick, they caught some decent bass. By mid-morning, however, McIntosh noticed water pooling on the surface where the sun was hitting the ice. So, the group moved their tent to a thicker area and started catching crappies.
“We had a nice day around noon, so I decided to order a pizza,” he said. “There were two young gentlemen who had been fishing across the lake for about an hour, and I was about to leave and get a pizza when they yelled at us, ‘We’re leaving! Do you want some minnows?’”
After thanking the two men, who became brothers, McIntosh and his friends used minnows to catch a few more crappies. A few minutes later, he looked across the lake to see his younger brother walking on the thinner part of the ice near the boat ramp. McIntosh went back to jigging live minnows, and when he looked up again, the angler had fallen through the ice. All he could see were two hands waving over the icy surface.
“His older brother started running towards him, and my friend Jake started running towards him. But I ran to the bag for my ice-fishing tent instead,” McIntosh said. “I was like, Well, I don’t have a rope with me, but if something falls I always grab that bag. I told myself [earlier] that morning I remembered that idea and grabbed the tent bag before I went out into the middle of the ice.”
By the time McIntosh got there, the fisherman had dropped the Panoptix fish finder he was carrying when he fell. He also had a camping chair in a bag around his neck.
With the older brother holding McIntosh’s hand, they formed a two-man chain as McIntosh tossed the nearly 7-foot-long tent bag toward the hole in the ice. The fisherman grabbed the bag, and they slowly pulled until he crawled to the surface of the lake. McIntosh yelled at him to keep crawling, but the man didn’t listen (or didn’t hear him) and instead stood up.
Read Next: The Best Fish Finder of 2024
“He literally fell over where I knelt down to pull him out the first time,” McIntosh said. “So I gave the bag to his brother, and now we’re kind of back together. I helped pull, and by the time we finally got there [the guy] out of the water [again]he was shaking.”
McIntosh learned that the brothers (whose names he did not catch) had obtained permission to fish the private lake from a landowner there. After calling the landowner, McIntosh returned for his ATV and drove the shivering fisherman to the landowner’s house, where he took a hot shower. McIntosh then ran home to pay the pizza delivery man waiting at his door.
“I went back to the ice and put down the pizza, and we got a few pieces with us because we were hungry. But then I went to help the older brother, because I saw and he was the Panoptix still floating in the middle of the lake,” McIntosh said. “That’s like $2,600 for the little fish finder.”
Unwilling to risk another fall, McIntosh devised a clever way to recover the fish finder. He borrowed a neighbor’s kayak and got two straight-claw hammers from his garage. The older brother then got into the boat to distribute his weight on the ice, cut open the lake using hammers as ice picks, and retrieved the fish finder from the open hole in the water. Meanwhile, McIntosh said the younger brother who fell into the lake has made a full recovery. He showed no signs of hypothermia or frostbite, and the two brothers returned home to Lincoln that afternoon.
Read Next: The Best Ice Fishing Shelters of 2024
“I talked to him that day and he said [the fish finder] opened. It still worked.”
