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Trio Still Fishing After Icy Plunge

January 10, 2011 - AROOSTOOK - A plunge into icy water Thursday didn't keep Jeff Nicknair from heading back out on Long Lake in northern Aroostook County to catch fish.

Nicknair went through thin ice with two friends while traveling on an all-terrain vehicle to a fishing destination on Long Lake in Sinclair.

All got out safely.

The three men, Nicknair, 30, of Augusta; Hershel "Al" Albert, 67, of Gardiner; and Travis Austin, 39, of Gardiner jumped off their machine when it crashed through the ice, and they were able to pull themselves out of the water.

Saturday morning the trio were back on the ice, just south of the boat launch on Long Lake in St. Agatha.

"I'm on the same body of water that we originally went through, but further north on better ice," Nicknair said Saturday.

The three men left the fishing camp where they were staying, off Route 162, at 8 a.m.Thursday.

Austin was driving the ATV, Nicknair was a passenger and Albert sat on the tote sled.

Nicknair said they checked the ice about halfway across the lake, and it was 7.5 inches thick. They were about 80 feet from the shore when they went through the ice, he said.

"Aaron Bailey was another person with me who didn't go through the ice," he said. "He was slightly ahead of us on a smaller Ski Do Safari sled -- at least half the weight we were. We stopped and looked down a hole gentlemen were fishing out of and it was about 8 1/2 inches (of ice). We went out many yards further from there and stopped and drilled a hole with an auger. That was 8 inches of good hard ice, so we gave the thumbs up to Aaron. I got back on the four-wheeler and said follow his tacks, but that wasn't good advice. Where he had gone is where we fell through."

Nicknair said it was a natural instinct to bail out once the machine started to sink. He had been sitting on a Coleman cooler filled with food at the time.

"When I jumped and hit the ice, I broke through," he said. "I grabbed a hold of chunks of ice and tried to pull myself back up, but I went through again. It happened three times before I was somewhat set (on the ice).

"As I'm pulling myself onto the ice, on the left of me Al was grabbing the ice and pulling himself up. He's 67 years old and has been a real trouper through all this. On the right of me, Travis was doing the same thing. It wasn't even two minutes before all three of us rescued ourselves."

He said the temperature was only 9 degrees that early in the morning. Bailey, 34, of Gardiner brought the men to shore, where they warmed up in another fishing camp.

A local man in town who knew the wardens had heard about the accident and offered to help bring the sunken four-wheeler to shore.

"In a small town like this, and I'm talking small town, he had heard down at the general store what happened," he said. "He towed a canoe with a four-wheeler and pushed it in the hole we went through and got in it and fished out all our gear. It was floating in the hole."

He said a grappling hook was dropped into the hole on a heavy piece of rope.

"They cut a trench straight to shore with a chain saw and dragged (the ATV) slowly to shore and muscled it out of the water," he said. "In less than 12 hours, we had the four-wheeler in a heated garage of one of the gentleman in town."

The next day, Friday, he said, they were out fishing on Long Lake with a group of men they met from the Gardiner area.

"We stayed right with them," he said. "They were more than hospitable. We fished there yesterday and caught nothing but perch. So we headed further north to St. Agatha. I'm the only one who has landed salmon this morning. I caught a 10-inch (salmon), which is a nonkeeper; and an hour and a half later I landed a 17-incher, which is a keeper."

Nicknair said he has been ice fishing since he was 5 and never had fallen through the ice. He said he and his friends are more leery of the ice and more cautious, but the ice bath wouldn't stop them from enjoying the sport.

"You couldn't talk me out of it," he said. "We'll just forever be a lot more cautious in areas we're not completely familiar with. We did it as safely as we could. It was just a lack of knowledge of the surroundings."

Wardens said people should test the thickness of the ice often when going onto a lake or pond, and to walk out first while testing it before taking vehicles and gear there.

If the ice is not thick enough, turn around and go back to shore or a safe location, they said, stressing that ice on many lakes and ponds may not be safe enough to hold people or heavy equipment or vehicles.

"The warden said when we got that blizzard down state two Mondays ago, they got rain up here," he said. "This body of water was frozen over, and then when the storm blew through, it opened completely. It's really cold but windy, and moving water doesn't freeze like calm water does."


By Mechele Cooper mcooper@centralmaine.com

Staff Writer, Kennebec Journal, January 9, 2011






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