The oddest thing you've ever had come up through the hole?

[BlueEye]

Just curious....

[Schools Out]

I have jigged up my fair share of mud puppys..

[JR]

only one mud puppy here

[bosco]

Once I was at Quinte. I'd been fishing for hours with no hits. Finally, I get some weight on and it feels like it might be something fair size but I back off a bit and see it's not tugging back. So....I bring it up slow and found that I'd caught someone's metal ice skimmer that must've dropped down a nearby hole. Does that count?

[FISHIN AGAIN?]

Years Ago on Buck Pond in Greece we were fishing for Pike with tip ups and my friend had one going. We all walked over to watch him bring the fish in when instead of a pike it was a Muskrat. We all jumped backwards at first and then proceeded to laugh our A_ _ _ _ off. One of the guys with us was a trapper and whacked em on the head with a ice skimmer. I'll never forget that day.

[Finders Keepers]

Was out on Port Bay at the south end with my dad and one of my friends looking for pike. My friend hooked into a real good one on our shallowest tip-up over about 2.5 ft of water - had run out all of the line on the reel and the tip-up was slammed against the side of the ice by the time we got to it! After a good 20 minutes or so of give and take, it finally came under the hole and we quickly realized it wasn't going to fit through the 8" hole! Chopped it bigger with the spud and after another 15 minutes or so he hauled an 18 lb salmonid onto the ice! I still don't know what kind of species it was: real bright pink on the sides (like a pink salmon), but not a steelhead (stout with a BIG girth and large tail) or a brownie (no spots). I've got a pic somewhere that I should throw on here to see if anyone knows what it was.

Anyway, that's the oddest thing I've had come through the ice...

[troutman10]

I'm third w/ a mudpuppy

[FREEMAN77]

one time we were fishing bradock and I had to pull my buddy through a hole out in the channel he was chest deep

[bosco]

A few years back on Otisco. I got all my gear set up, the hut, the tip-ups, drilled some extra holes to bop around with hand lines. But I sit down in my chair and I see WAY off in the distance, a tip up, with the flag up. It's not mine and there's NOBODY else on the lake. So I grab my spud bar figuring I'm going to hack a free tip up out of the ice. I do and I notice the lines going out to the side. I start bringing the line in and suddenly I feel a little weight on it and immediately the the line takes off. No kiddin. So I peel out a bunch of line and set it, and the tip up' on the ice next to the little hole I'd hacked out, walked back to my set up area, grabbed my auger, and went back and drilled a full size hole next to the tiny little tip up hole. I rolled up my sleeve and reached down into the fresh hole that I'd drilled, reached over and grabbed the line coming from the tip up and pulled it through the fresh hole and pulled a bunch of "play line" through and started bringing the fish in. It took me 3 times to get the head lined up to come through the hole. Turned out to be a 30" Tiger.....and it was the ONLY THING I CAUGHT ALL DAY....on a tip up frozen in the ice. I really have no idea how long the tip up was left there for, or how long the Tiger was on it....but it's a keeper of a story.

[Gray Fox]

Heres a little story that I posted last January in another unusual catch topic. This was most definitely the wierdest thing that I have witnessed coming through a hole in the ice.

Sunday afternoon while ice fishing a swamp pond, we had a flag. As we approached the spool was spinning out of control, no matter waht we did we could not seem to gain any line, after about a 40 min fight what a suprise we had in store for ourselves. After seeing a dark flash pass below the hole a few times the thoughts were "Man that pickerel is goin on the wall!!!" It was about that time that we learned that it was indeed no pickerel but what turned out to be around a 15-20 pound river otter. He came through the hole hissing like no other and trying to bite anything he could. After a while of the otter coming thoruhg the hole and hissing and returning below the ice to fight some more we finally realized that he was hooked in the hind foot. After quite some time we managed to pull the otter through the hole backward and pull the hook out. That is probably our most unusual catch.

[rail bird]

This story is from a book called the Fishing hall of shame by Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo. It has a lot of funny fishing stories, this is a prime example.

Rocky the Labrador Retriver.

" On a bone chilling day in the winter of 1967 Frank Lindquest of Minneapolis brought along his pet dog Rocky for companionship as he waited patiently inside his shanty for a fish to take his bait. It was the first time Lindquest had his dog accompany him on an ice fishing trip.

The loyal labrador retriever lay on the ice beside the hole, curiously looking down into the icy water. Suddenly a large pike swam right accross the hole, just below the waters surface. Rocky lept to his feet barking excitedly.

Sshh! Sshh! you'll scare it off! Lindquest hissed. But Rocky barked again then jumped headfirst into the hole after the fish!

The pike darted away But Rocky swam after it. Going deeper and deeper under the thick grey sheet of ice. By the time the Labrador realized he could never catch the fast moving fish, he was hopelessly lost and trapped.

Rocky frantically paddled here and there, back and forth desperately searching for the hole from which he had dived. Soon his lungs were nearly bursting and his body was getting numb from the cold.

Then up ahead he saw a shaft of yellow light beaming down from a hole in the ice. Rocky swam toward it and veered upward. He had no idea that the hole led to another shanty thirty feet away from his master's

Ker-splash! The dog's head popped out of the water shocking the fisherman who had been hunkered down over the hole!

The angler jumped back in surprise. In a lifetime of fishing he had seen some strange looking creatures, but this one beat them all.

Dog-tired Rocky finally scrambled out of the hole. Shivering from the friged water, he furiously shook his body showering the still stunned fisherman from head to toe. Minutes later the diving dog and his worried master were reunited."

[Cheers]

I have also seen a muskrat come thru the ice over at long pond. It nearly froze to death trying to get back to shore 50 yards away.

[Fish Junkie]

I also had a muskrat come up for air in the hole I was jigging in last year. Scared the bejebus out of me!

[windburn]

Years ago, on Oneida ice, I pulled up one of those pancakes out of Shackelton Shoals out of Cleveland or Constantia. I guess they used to dump these things out there. Still not sure what they're made of. Used to catch a few ling also. Some guys would pile them next to their holes and leave them. Burbot, I guess they're called. Now my brothers keep them, I guess they're pretty good tablefare.