An angler and 62-year-old driver of a Jeep Cherokee had a very public bad day on Puckaway Lake in Wisconsin last Saturday — internet public. When he was trying to take off for the day, the fisherman’s vehicle crashed through the thin ice around 3 p.m. Another angler on the lake filmed the Jeep go down; the footage was posted on TikTok and soon hit other platforms and local news. As a result of this incident and two recent ice-related fatalities in recent days — including an angler who died on the Kewaunee River — the state department of natural resources has reminded the public that no ice is safe this early in the season.
While December has been pretty cold in the area and some significant ice has formed, temperatures were around 50 degrees last weekend, making it all the more remarkable someone would think it was a good idea to take a roughly 4,000-pound vehicle onto the ice.
The 5,000-acre lake — an impoundment of the Fox River that’s about 55 miles north of Madison — had about 4 inches of ice at the time, according to the Wautoma Police Department, which posted the video from TikTok on the department Facebook account with the caption: “Don’t be this guy and cause Wautoma Area Fire District-Water Operations/Dive Team any early season work. Be safe.”
The state DNR says 9 inches of new, clear ice is required to reliably drive a small SUV onto the hard water, while 4 inches is the minimum safe thickness for walking on ice
Officials didn’t identify the driver, but revealed his age (62) and that he is from Cambria. He wasn’t injured, but the same can’t be said for his Cherokee.
“He just thought the ice was strong enough to drive on it,” Green Lake County Sheriff Joe Konrath told Madison.com. “It warmed up pretty good Saturday afternoon, and Puckaway is just the Fox River going through and the water current probably weakened the ice. But he never should have drove on there.”
The state DNR doesn’t monitor ice conditions, according to FDL Reporter, but they are monitored locally. Officials say local fishing clubs, outfitters, and bait shops are the best source for reliable and current information about ice conditions.
Madison.com reports that a man named Andy Duernberger shot a video of the incident — he presumably began recording when he saw the driver planned to take his Jeep onto the ice. Duernberger’s nephew, Mason Koerber, said the driver had been fishing on the lake near a boat landing on the northern shore.
After a few hours, he tried to drive back to shore, which is when the video starts. The ice gave way beneath him when he was about 75 yards short, at which point the driver can be seen scrambling out of the open driver’s side window into the water. He then boosts himself onto the ice.
Mason Koerber, whose uncle Andy Duernberger, of Slinger, took a video of the incident, said the driver had been fishing on the lake near the Lotus Drive boat landing on the lake’s northern shore, which is in Marquette County a few miles south of Princeton. Others were fishing that day, but they all walked onto the ice. The Jeep was the only vehicle — Koerber said there weren’t even any ATVs.
After fishing for a few hours, the angler tried to drive back to shore, but his Jeep broke through the ice about 75 yards from shore. The front end of the vehicle plunged through the ice with the back end sticking up into the air.
The vehicle was removed from the lake the next day. While the Cambria man made it out unscathed, two men have died in Wisconsin in recent days in separate incidents after falling through ice, further bolstering the seriousness of officials’ warnings about taking extreme caution on ice, even when it looks solid.
The first of the two ice-related fatalities in Wisconsin was a 66-year-old man who fell through the ice on a retention pond on his own property in Perry in Dane County on Friday. He was found in the pond by authorities after he was reported missing.
Additionally, a 65-year-old man, David J. Mastalir who was described as an avid angler, died while ice fishing on the Kewaunee River last week, according to the Green Bay Gazette. His brother called police after the man failed to return from a fishing trip on a shelf of ice. His body was recovered on Monday after being located beneath the ice by an underwater drone. His fishing equipment was found on the ice.
Warm temperatures are expected in the area through the weekend, but are expected to drop early next week and thicken up the ice.
Remember, ice must be at least 4 inches thick to walk on it, 8 inches thick to drive an ATV onto the ice, and you need at least 12 inches of ice to support a mid-sized pickup truck. Ice conditions can change rapidly and vary greatly, even on the same body of water.
