Last weekend out youngest son, Andy, went ice fishing with a couple of his former college roommates. They rented one of those big ice houses on Mille Lac Lake. The week before we had a run of four or five days of 40+ degree weather that had melted most of our snow and left standing water on local lakes. I was worried it was a little late in the year to go ice fishing.
He just smiled when I expressed alarm that he would spend 24 hrs. on the ice. The DNR was warning that standing water had weakened some ice. There were thin, "rotten" spots. You need to know that the rental ice houses are a ways from shore on a very big lake. You drive out there. OMG thought the mother.
He didn't change his plans.
I made one last attempt to dissuade the kid. These ice houses are often heated by propane heaters. A nurse I used to work with has a son-in-law who spent a night in an ice house a few years ago that wasn't properly ventilated and was overcome by CO. He lived, but is brain damaged.
My husband thinks I worry too much. I probably do. (That and nag.) When I voiced these concerns to Andy he said, "Yeah, I packed a portable CO detector and extra batteries, mom." Right.
He is a thoughtful kid though. In the morning he called from the fish house on his cell phone and left a message to tell mom he was still alive. I never got a second call saying he also made it off the ice intact, but.....
The picture is not Andy and friend. I don't think it was warm enough to catch some rays shirtless. They didn't even get a fish or a nibble. I think they might have had a cooler, though.
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