Les Keune of West Union discusses his near-death experience ice fishing with Union reporter Chris DeBack. While traveling on the Mississippi River at the Minnesota Slough near Lansing, his snowmobile fell through the ice. He managed to grab hold of his ice fishing shelter and phone for help, but he was in the ice cold water for approximately 30 minutes.
Keune: God had a hold of me . . .
By Chris Deback
cdeback@thefayettecountyunion.com
Les Keune is an experienced ice fisherman. Having spent a majority of winters in his adulthood out on the ice, last Friday was going to be just another morning with him, the cold and some fish.
Keune was in the Minnesota Slough near Lansing having set out from Armory Road onto the Mississippi with his snowmobile and mobile ice shelter. He made it 1½ miles on the ice before he came to a patch of ice that made him a little gun-shy. He didn’t want to risk an accident, so he got off his snowmobile and began to check out the ice.
“I have fished that place many, many times, and I know the ice down there,” Keune said. “So, I pulled up and stopped, because you can’t drive across the islands. I went down with a spud and sounded out the ice, and it sounded good. There was snowmobile track already through there, so I took off around there.”
Just when he thought he was safe, he felt the snow beneath his snowmobile begin to give. First, the back end of the snowmobile fell into the water and then the front end. He rolled off the snowmobile and began to tread water with his ice armor on.