There are plenty of things you might expect to see pop up on a fish finder while spending an evening at the lake. A silver Dodge Dakota sitting at the bottom probably isn’t one of them.
That’s exactly what a fisherman reportedly discovered at Montgomery County State Lake near Independence, Kansas, on August 14. According to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, the citizen was using a LiveScope fish finder when something considerably larger than a fish appeared beneath the water.
Deputies were called to the lake at approximately 8:30 p.m., where the submerged vehicle had been located near a dock on the northeast side. The discovery ultimately kicked off a three-day operation involving deputies, game wardens, an underwater drone, divers, and a heavy-duty tow truck.
Perhaps most importantly, nobody was discovered inside once the truck was eventually pulled from the water. Unfortunately, that still leaves authorities with one pretty significant mystery to solve: how did a 2004 Dodge Dakota end up at the bottom of the lake in the first place?
Underwater Drone Gets a Closer Look at Mysterious Dodge
Kansas Wildlife and Parks game wardens responded to Montgomery County State Lake the following day. Instead of immediately sending someone underwater, officers deployed an underwater drone to investigate what the fisherman had discovered.
The drone allowed officers to identify the vehicle as a Dodge Dakota. Authorities also noticed that there wasn’t a license plate attached to it, giving them at least one fewer obvious clue about who the truck belonged to.
Then, on August 16, deputies and wildlife officers returned alongside divers from the Wyandotte Volunteer Fire Department. Divers entered the lake, inspected the truck and its surroundings, and worked out how they could safely get the vehicle back onto dry land.
Rough Country Towing & Recovery brought in a heavy wrecker while divers secured cables to the Dakota. After presumably spending quite a long time as one of the lake’s stranger underwater attractions, the truck was finally hauled back to the surface.
Nobody Was Inside, But Police Still Don’t Know How the Truck Got There
Once the vehicle was out of the water, deputies were able to get a considerably better look at what they were dealing with. Authorities identified it as a silver 2004 Dodge Dakota 4×4 with four doors.
The Sheriff’s Office believes the truck had been submerged for a long period of time, although exactly how long hasn’t been determined. More importantly, deputies confirmed that nobody was inside the vehicle when it was recovered.
Authorities haven’t said who owns the Dakota or explained how it ended up in Montgomery County State Lake. The circumstances surrounding both when and how the truck entered the water remain under investigation.
Anyone who recognizes the vehicle or knows something about how it got there is being asked to contact the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office. Until somebody provides an answer, the fisherman who originally spotted it might have accidentally landed the biggest mystery in the entire lake.
Commenters Have Plenty of Theories About the Truck’s Mysterious Past
Unsurprisingly, discovering an old truck at the bottom of a lake sent commenters into amateur detective mode pretty quickly. Some wondered whether the Dakota could be connected to missing-person cases in the area, although authorities haven’t publicly linked the vehicle to any missing person.
Others were fascinated by the underwater drone used to investigate it. One person wondered what else game wardens might discover if they regularly searched local waterways with the equipment, while another joked that the Facebook comments already had enough amateur forensic investigators to solve the entire thing.
Of course, you can’t pull a truck out of someone’s fishing spot without getting a few fishing jokes. One commenter joked that someone was going to be upset when they discovered their favorite fishing hole was gone, while another declared, “That was the crappie hole!”
Perhaps the best reaction came from someone joking that they’d previously hooked something huge in the area that broke their fishing line. Whether investigators eventually uncover a perfectly ordinary explanation or something considerably stranger, one thing is certain: whoever first spotted that Dakota with a fish finder caught something far bigger than they were probably expecting.