Bad Deal – Ottertail

Pressure ridge they drove into in the dark? Imagine it was in the neighborhood of the Walker outlet or OT river inlet? Terrible

https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/minnesota/central-minnesota-man-dies-after-snowmobiles-atv-go-into-lake

Very sad

That’s several in the last week. My guess is that the heavy wet snow earlier in the season has caused some real varied ice thickness conditions on lots of lakes. I was out on the Horseshoe chain over the weekend and we found ice thickness anywhere from 11″-15″. In some places these difference were not to far apart. In a normal year with some of the cold snaps we’ve had there would be lots of safe ice by this point.

Sad deal. A good reminder for all of us to never trust the ice. I’ve been fishing 2 lakes the past week near home in western Wright Co. Lake 1 had 12″ out from the landing and 8″ where I ended up fishing. Lake 2 had 14″ 100yds from the landing and 9″ where I fished. Heard a pickup went through Washington last week, but they escaped.

A good reminder to be more careful with sleds and ATV’s when it comes to speed and you dont know the terrain. Especially at night but my worst sledding accident on a lake was in brood daylight.

It was river outlet/inlet related.
DT

I work with a lady that knows the man that died. He had a house on Ottertail very close to the river inlet. All the emergency vehicles were on the road right in front of the inlet. There’s talk that they drove into open water.

Never have driven over that inlet in the winter but I know even in late summer there seems to be a lot of current there.