Murray Lake ice fisherman please be cautious!

[Icefisher2885]

Hi all, was out at the far west end Murry Lake today with a buddy of mine and had a pretty scary experience. We were walking on the lake on what appeared to be perfectly hard ice when my buddy started getting a bit of slush coming up from under the now. I wasn't particularly worried about it as I thought it was just a bit of flood water insulated under the snow pack when on his next step he disappeared into the lake.

Thank god he remained calm and I saw his head pop right away - he had managed to regain his footing and the water was neck deep on him. He managed to crawl himself back onto the ice while I was looking for a stick to pull him out with (he only weighs 160 pounds - I'm 225 so I would've been right in there with him if had of tried to pull him out by hand). He suffered no injuries and we managed to get him stripped down and into a warm truck within a matter of minutes.

I'm sure that most of the lake is just fine to walk around on but please be cautious. Other than a little bit of slush under the snow there was no indication that anything was wrong. There was no indication that he was going to go under - it was literally as if he had stepped off of a 6 foot bank as there was next to no resistance from the ice he went through.

[madatter]

Was going to fish there today too but just decided to keep heading west.
Never fished the west end,always go by the dam or south of dam.
Sorta weird that there is that little ice tho....
Were you just south of the trailer on the west side?

[Icefisher2885]

Bump.

Sorry Madhatter I can't really give you a concrete location on where I was as it was the first time I've ever been over there. It was near where the canal runs (in or out?) on the west side. The canal goes from the lake, zig zags around a bit, goes under a small (1.5 feet wide by 30 feet long) pedestrian bridge, then goes underneath the road. To get over there you take RR 103 (Couple Km north of the lake) west, drop down to RR 102, then turn south at a group of grain bins.

[madatter]

I know exactly where you were,ive hunted birds n deer over there for years.
I've never seen anybody fish the inlet or even the southwest end as it's all pretty shallow....
All the deeper water is pretty much on the north end.