NEW ULM — The motorcycle that Ron Miller of New Ulm is restoring is not in the greatest shape. But then again it did sit at the bottom of a lake for 56 years.

A commercial fisherman recently netted the 1938 German motorcycle from Big Swan Lake in Dassel. Turns out it had been there since 1956, when 15-year Dean Allie crashed through thin ice just a days after his dad gave it to him. Even scuba divers couldn’t find it.

The fisherman returned it to Allie, now 71 and still in Dassel. But Allie turned it over to Miller, an acquaintance of the fisherman who collects motorcycles.

Miller said that Allie asked only for a picture of the restored bike.