Six ice fishermen were rescued Sunday afternoon from an ice floe that broke off from the shore in above-freezing temperatures and windy conditions and drifted into the bay of Green Bay.
The six men, none of who reportedly were Door County residents, ventured onto the ice off Big Rock Place in the Town of Gardner when a visible crack in the ice about 300 yards from shore turned into a full breakage. According to BM1 Taylor Barnes of the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Sturgeon Bay, the men said they saw the crack but decided to step over it and head farther out onto the bay, assuming the ice was still connected to the shore elsewhere along the ice shelf. Instead, they were stuck on the resulting floe, which was about a quarter-mile square and carried by the winds and current farther out into the bay.