Now over 100 fishermen trapped on Upper Red

Right around sunset. Out of JR’s access.

It’s sketchy out there people. Even following best practices, the risk is real.

at this point its just getting comical. i understand the resorts want to make money to survive but at what point do they just become greedy taking peoples money and sending them out? hopefully they all make it out okay.

I wonder if John Rasmussen is one of them. He said he was going up there.

Just posted at 18:24…

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Jr’s claims if wasn’t out of their access

that’s what I just read too….

I have a coworker up there now. He is out of JRs and says it sucks that they’re stuck in shallow due to an active crack, but they stuck with going out of JRs knowing that anyway and did “OK”. He said they caught enough to make it worth the trip and enjoyable, but nothing lights out.

He said they saw 3 or 4 airboats shuttling people out as far as the eye could see. That’s got to be a pretty lucrative gig. Charge a healthy per person rate, shuttle a couple dozen people out and fish along with them with no other people around.

Hey it’s seems we made the national news with this one. Yippee

Coletrain27 wrote:

i understand the resorts want to make money to survive but at what point do they just become greedy taking peoples money and sending them out?

Exactly my thought. This is getting ridiculous, total lack of accountability.

Which resort was it? I can’t seem to find out other than multiple claims that it was not JRs

People are going to blame any resort they can…..just to take the stupid off of the fact they crossed the active crack in the ice and couldn’t get back across!

Sorry. shut all resorts down until later, save a few maybe and some first responders. This is beyond stupid, All about money

At this point they should be charging all the people rescued a rescue fee for saving their stupid ass.
If a resort let them go out, then the resort should have to pay the fee.
It’s time for being stupid to hurt again.

Is it true they make you leave your gear on the ice?

Youbetcha wrote:

Is it true they make you leave your gear on the ice?

Ive heard that before and I also heard last time on red that they let them take their electronics with them. That’s just what I’ve heard and wasn’t there to know for sure

Stop blaming the resorts people would be going out on 10 inches of ice anyway. You cross crack and it opens up instead of driving out of your way to another public access they come get you off safely.

Someone dies on LOW and it is a sad situation as it should be.
People need to cross a crack and nobody gets injured and it’s stupid greedy resorts.

Ice is sketchy all over this year and people are still going to go out one way or another.

As Ron White would say
“You can’t fix stupid”

Ripjiggen wrote:

People need to cross a crack and nobody gets injured and it’s stupid greedy resorts.

Ice is sketchy all over this year and people are still going to go out one way or another.

No one “needs” to cross a crack when they know there is a reasonable chance it might separate and float away, which has been obviously happening regularly this year.

No one needs to go on sketchy ice either. It’s not like this a life or death food or starvation situation. Maybe just wait until the ice conditions improve. Seems pretty stupid to keep doing this over and over especially after 50 degrees and rain in late December.

Rip, I get what you are saying but I don’t agree with your philosophy that resorts have absolutely zero accountability for if/when/how they decide to let paying customers use their access. There is a certain degree on inherent responsibility when you’re taking peoples money and telling them its good to go.

It’s one thing if theres one rescue situation a year… its a completely different situation when its happening every couple days. Hopefully the resorts pay Kelliher Fire and Rescue for the services needed on their behalf. That in a very poor part of the state and those small town fire departments budgets are very small.

Gitchi Gummi wrote:

Rip, I get what you are saying but I don’t agree with your philosophy that resorts have absolutely zero accountability for if/when/how they decide to let paying customers use their access. There is a certain degree on inherent responsibility when you’re taking peoples money and telling them its good to go.

It’s one thing if theres one rescue situation a year… its a completely different situation when its happening every couple days. Hopefully the resorts pay Kelliher Fire and Rescue for the services needed on their behalf. That in a very poor part of the state and those small town fire departments budgets are very small.

I have to agree with all of this. Kinda common sense, which isn’t so common anymore…

If you are not asked to sign a waiver, the resorts are probably accountable if you paid them. That said. the resorts have no control over anyone once they are out across the ice.

Gitchi – my comments on the other thread echo yours. Beltrami county is the 2nd poorest (damn poor) county in Minnesota. Someone should be paying for the rescues besides the county residents.

Charge a county rescue fee on each group entering through resorts ? Tack on $5 per group ? Have the resorts collect it with their access fee ? On occasion, send in an auditor to make sure the $5 goes to the county and not the resort.

Or maybe those resorts are decent income generators for the county already and the county is fine with all this ?

This time of year with out snow to plow about the only thing that a resort has to do is check on ice conditions. When paying your access fee most people would expect at least this.

However, big lakes come with big lake problems….

Which resort? You would think that this information would be easily accessible but it looks like this type of information is forbidden to speak of. Has any one confirmed the resort name on Lake of the Woods that the track vehicle broke through a couple of days ago? Seems like a hidden secret.

Playing Devils advocate….
If you paid to access Upper Red Lake, or any lake for that matter, via private property to launch your boat and subsequently swamp your boat-

Is the private property owner responsible for the damage to your boat?

I agree there is responsibility for the property owner while on their property, but once you are on public waters, you’re on your own. Nearly every resort is going above and beyond to keep their customers safe and restricting access or locations due to ice conditions.
Its time that people take some responsibility for their own actions and quit blaming somebody else.

How long until resorts require a liability waiver relieving them of responsibility once the customer is on public water?

Do you think if resorts closed there access people wouldn’t be on the lake?
Since a crack opened up on one part of the lake should all resorts have to close their access?
Since a vehicle went through on the Northwest Angel shouldn’t all the resorts on the south shore of LOW close?

yes, close them for however long it takes on Red Lake this year, with rescues being done every other day, this year is different. Very few spots you can get on that lake without trespassing. People are not learning at least another 122 of them

shefland wrote:

yes, close them for however long it takes on Red Lake this year, with rescues being done every other day, this year is different. Very few spots you can get on that lake without trespassing. People are not learning at least another 122 of them

Agree 100%, particularly the last sentence.

MX1825 wrote:

As Ron White would say
“You can’t fix stupid”

Same tour but wasn’t that Bill Engvall’s line?

Leave them for a night. Go get them at about 10:00am the next day and charge them handily for it.

Going out and bringing in the masses for free once a week who cross active cracks does nothing to deter the behavior.

Leave them for a night. Go get them at about 10:00am the next day and charge them handily for it.

I agree 100%. Being stupid should hurt. It’s time to make it hurt again.

Nothing quite like the combo of exploiting both natural resources and government resources for your own personal financial gain. Usually the latter alone is enough to get you chastised around here.

When a bar serves a minor and the minor ends up driving drunk and killing someone, both the minor and the bar are legally liable. While the minor is indeed the catalyst in this scenario, the bar is without a doubt, partially responsible. Just because the consumer wants it, doesn’t mean the business should provide it.

And if the bartender says “well if I didn’t serve him, he was going to find alcohol somewhere else” (i.e. well they would have accessed the lake via the public access if not for the resort) isn’t a valid argument for the bartender to be serving the minor.

OG Net_Man wrote:

Which resort? You would think that this information would be easily accessible but it looks like this type of information is forbidden to speak of. Has any one confirmed the resort name on Lake of the Woods that the track vehicle broke through a couple of days ago? Seems like a hidden secret.

Rogers had the guys float away yesterday.

The bomber drowning was Angle Outpost.