USA TODAY International Edition
Deluxe fishing houses help place party on ice
High-tech comforts put old shanties to shame
Brad Schultz’s ice fishing shanty could be mistaken for a fancy travel trailer that’s lost its way.
Inside, an electric fireplace casts a soft, warm glow on the tongue-andgroove cedar-paneled walls. At the touch of an electric button, a bunk bed comes down from the ceiling, ready for a weary ice fisherman at the end of a cold day.
But even when it’s 20 below outside, it can be 70 degrees inside the $41,000 fish house that’s a hotel room on ice — wired for satellite TV, of course.
The onset of ice fishing season should be just weeks away. And with it comes the renewal of a pastime that is as much about camaraderie as it is about catching fish.
For many, time spent in ice fishing houses is to be cherished, whether alone or with a crowd. And the houses themselves are as individual as the people who take refuge in them.
Luxurious ice fishing houses have become more popular in the upper Midwest in the last couple of years. Ice Castle Fish Houses makes a range of models with such names as the Stinger, the Otter Tail and the Walleye Tracker.
But Schultz’s “shanty” is something else.
Ready to liven things up? Flip on the LED party lighting and crank up your tunes on the outdoor speakers. Getting closer to spring? It has a screen door to keep mosquitoes out. But in January, on a frozen lake, that shouldn’t be a problem. To catch fish without going outside, there are seven lighted holes with lids in the shanty’s marine-grade plywood floor. Drop an electric auger into the ice and drill away. Then lower an underwater camera into a hole and, on a big-screen TV, watch fish swim by.
Some Ice Castles even have an aquarium built into an inside wall so you can watch your bait minnows swimming around before they’re put on a hook.
All of this, and more, from the comfort of a fishing shack that sleeps six and has a forced-air furnace, double-pane windows, ceiling fans, a bathroom with a full-size shower, a three-burner stove and oven, microwave, refrigerator and double sink.
In the spring, the fish house can be pulled off the frozen lake and used as a posh hunting shack with a power awning, a rooftop air conditioner, camouflage curtains and mattresses.
Weighing about 6,000 pounds, you wouldn’t want to leave this deluxe outdoors abode parked on thin ice. “It weighs a little more than a pickup truck, so you’ve got to watch it,” said Schultz, an avid outdoorsman. In the dead of winter, when the ice on some lakes is several feet thick, Schultz and his family head to northern Minnesota, where the lakes are dotted with Ice Castles and a wide array of other shanties.
Brett Drexler, general manager of Minnesota-based Ice Castle, said the company is having its best season ever. “We are slammed right now with ... people wanting their fish houses. I am under a lot of stress,” he said.
Smaller, traditional ice fishing shanties still reign on Wisconsin’s frozen lakes, with hundreds of them covering waterways, including Lake Winnebago, starting in January.
Many are made from old travel trailers that last checked out of a campground decades ago.
“It’s like a little village out here,” said Dan Brokiewicz, nestled in his homemade shanty on Shawano Lake in Cecil, Wisconsin. He paid $100 for the little shed 18 years ago and has since added a wood-burning heater that doubles as a cook stove. “There are a lot of good memories,” said Brokiewicz.