Important Ice-Fishing Safety Tips

If you're like many NRA Family readers, chances are you welcome winter and all the opportunities for cold-weather sports it brings. Several of these sports, particularly ice fishing and outdoor skating on frozen lakes or rivers, do carry some inherent risk...that of falling through the ice. This week brings a reminder of tragic news of two ice fishermen who passed away after having fallen through the ice of Sandy Pond, in Oswego County, New York.

Becoming immersed in near-freezing water is extremely dangerous, as we have discussed on this website before. Hypothermia can be life-threatening, as noted by Guy Sagi, NRA Family contributor with a background in search and rescue. The particular region in which this very sad news story occurred also happens to be about half an hour's drive from Ft. Drum, where the U.S. Army trains troops for cold-weather conditions. Despite the fact that that area of the country generally lies firmly in the grip of arctic conditions from October to April, this year unusual temperature swings resulted in the pond's ice becoming thinner and more variable than normal.

Please be safe and protect yourself and your family against tragic accidents of this type. We'd like to refer you to this timely and informative article courtesy of Jim Shepherd, editor of The Outdoor Wire. We recommend reading it, re-reading it, then printing it out and re-checking it before you head out to enjoy your winter activities.