[UPDATE to Story-7.9.2019]

I just received a text from my friend Dan. He said there were plans to start 'pumping' water out of Lake Andes in hopes of bringing the water levels down. Thank you for sharing this story with your Facebook and Twitter friends. I appreciate it. JD Collins

Many from around the area made it to the Missouri River for Independence Day, but not not so many took a trip like I did around the Lake. Lake Andes in Southern South Dakota.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were down at the river for a weekend getaway. I was talking with friend Dan and he mentioned that he would like to take his jet-ski out on Lake Andes [the lake] and see how far to the north and east he could go. I love exploring so I told him I was game. This past weekend, it worked. We put the jet-ski in just to the north of Lake Andes, South Dakota. Our boat ramp was somewhat improvised. We used the ditch, just off the road and off we went.

We started out, working our way up the west side of the lake. We made it north to within a quarter of a mile of the Geddes oil.  We might have made it further but the grass was starting to show out of the water, so we turned around and headed south, this time hugging the west edge of the flooded lake.

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One of the highlights of the trip, was also an extreme low. The furthest were able to go west was around just over a mile west of 281. It was low because we were floating on what was prime farm land just last year. Dan said, it's not often you can harvest awesome corn in the fall, and then ride a jet ski nearly 50 miles an hour on it the next summer.

We headed back to the south along the west side of the lake right by a ladder deer stand that was just sticking up out of the water in the refuge. Along the way back into Lake Andes we saw numerous homes along the lakes edge that were much closer to the water than they would like to be.

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The last shot was taken just to the east of The Dollar General Store. The road to Lake Andes will most likely be closed for some time. The lake is going down, but drains very slowly into the Missouri River through a large culvert just northeast of Lake Andes.

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Many from around the area made it to the Missouri River for Independence Day, but not very many took in the trip we did around the Lake. Lake Andes.

JD Collins via Sprint-Sioux Falls
JD Collins via Sprint-Sioux Falls
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