daniel peterman wrote:

I bore a hole in a frozen, then another one about 10 yards away. The
object is to get a dragline laced with baited hooks from one hole under
the ice to the other hole.

You load up the dynamite, shotguns, and dog in the brand new ford
explorer...

oh, nevermind.

Boring one hole, getting something colorful through the ice and some
distance away and then boring another hole to retrieve it is probably
the right way.

But here's another idea that might work, and includes more metal
content ;-)

Bore two holes. Make up an assembly consisting of a thin steel wire
joining two heavy weights, with retreival rope attached to each weight
as well. Drop one weight in each hole, and wait for the pressure to
melt the wire through the ice (which will refreeze behind it).
Supposedly this should work with pressure alone, though of course you
could speed it up by running a current through the wire to heat it. It
may not work so well if the water is much shallower than half the
distance between the holes - chances are the wire will melt through at
the ends first and in the middle last, and if the weights bottom out
before that it may get stuck.