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Sometimes_Stutters t1_iy7te0p wrote

Reply to comment by StokFlame in About 100 fishermen rescued after large chunk of ice breaks off in Minnesota lake by AmethystOrator

Actually 6 inches of ice is plenty for a four wheeler *if you know what you’re doing. With 6 inches of ice a stationary or slow-moving four wheeler will not fall through. The risk comes from moving at high enough speeds to create a “wake” under the ice behind you. When you suddenly stop the wake will catch up to you, and when it reaches about 3ft behind you the upward push of the wake and the downward push from the four wheelers can cause the ice to break apart.

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StokFlame t1_iy7uiqw wrote

I agree, but not in the conditions we have had in this area. Below 20 at night and up to 40 during the day. Your situation would be great with good solid ice, but that's not what we have. We have air pocket filled ice that is not very stable at all right now for heavy machinery to be driving on. We have maybe 3 inches of good solid ice and 3 inches of bad.

Interesting wake concept tho never thought of it like that.

Edit: also as a person that's been here my whole life, I still wait for 10. No fish is worth the cost of your life or all your equipment + fines.

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Sometimes_Stutters t1_iy7whu9 wrote

I grew up in the area as well lol. I’ve always been a little more cavalier with ice, but usually stick to snowmobile.

I swear this ice rescue on red happened every year

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BarbequedYeti t1_iy83j5p wrote

> *if you know what you’re doing.

Spoiler: They never know what they are doing.

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McDuchess t1_iy9ijhr wrote

And because this was the warmest November I can remember, the lake was very likely not covered uniformly with that 6” of ice.

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chantillylace9 t1_iy7z2zq wrote

Minnesota is notorious for spring fed lakes so there are tons of weak spots on the ice, even during the coldest part of winter.

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Sometimes_Stutters t1_iy803p6 wrote

Minnesotan here. I don’t agree with this statement. Although the vast majority of lakes do have some spring water feed, it doesn’t usually create a weak spot in the ice. Typically lake ice weak spots are at water inflows and outflows from rivers, and these are almost always marked with stakes. The lakes are quite safe to travel on, especially when snow build-up occurs and only plowed roads are traveled by heavy equipment (and the plowed roads are always such that they avoid weak spots). That being said every year people do fall through, but that’s almost always operator error.

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chantillylace9 t1_iy80gnx wrote

Man not the two lakes I lived on, the springs kept holes in the ice year round.

One of the springs actually came up into our basement and travelled downhill to the lake to feed it. My mom turned it into a super cute little stream. But we sure got a ton of flooded basements!! It was a 100 year old farmhouse which was awesome but way too much work.

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fantasmoofrcc t1_iy8bbao wrote

Yeah, I don't know his reasoning. He can go close to the water intakes all he wants, someone else will have a rope to help. Upper and Lower Red lake is pretty darn big (not Superior big, mind you) at 37miles long. Wind would be a bigger factor than just spring feeds in this case.

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