Reige: March, Time to Remove and Transport Ice Shelters
Published 11:09 pm Wednesday, March 2, 2011
BY BOB AND GINNY RIEGE
With the beginning of March, a lot of us are looking forward to spring and open water fishing. With that in mind here is the warning from the Minnesota DNR.
“Dark houses, fish houses and portables must be off the ice no later than midnight for each of the dates given in the following categories below.
Border Waters
* Minnesota–Iowa – Feb. 20
* Minnesota–Wisconsin – March 1
* Minnesota–North and South Dakota – March 5
* Minnesota–Canada – March 31
Inland Waters
Dates of removal are determined by an eastwest line formed by U.S. Hwy. 10, east along Hwy. 34 to Minnesota Hwy. 200, east along Hwy. 200 to U.S. Hwy. 2, and east along Hwy. 2 to the Minnesota-Wisconsin border.
* South of border – March 7
* North of border – March 21
* If shelters are not removed, owners will be prosecuted, and the structure and contents may be confiscated and removed, or destroyed by a conservation officer.
* After removal dates, shelters may remain on the ice between midnight and one hour before sunrise only when occupied or attended.
* Storing or leaving shelters on a public access is prohibited.
It is unlawful to improperly dispose of ice fishing shacks anywhere in the state. Please clean up around your shack and check with local refuse providers or landfills for ice shelter disposal information.”
If you are still looking for some late season fishing, we would recommend heading up to Lake of the Woods in Baudette, MN. A number of the resorts are offering some great late season fishing and as mentioned before you don’t have to have “permanent” shelters off until March 21st. Contact www.sportsmanslodgelow.com. or www.wigwamresortlow.com or www.randallsresortlow.com. they have some really great prices at this time of the year. Also, you are treated to a coach ride out on the ice and picked up at the end of the day from a bombardier. Ginny refers to them “as the only way to travel on the ice.”
The bombardier has a long history in Northern Minnesota. “Before the start of the company’s development of track vehicles, Joseph-Armand Bombardier experimented with propeller driven snow vehicles (similar to Russian aerosans).
From the start the company made truck-sized half-track vehicles, with skis in the front and Caterpillar tracks in the rear, designed for the worst winter conditions of the flatland Canadian countryside. After producing half-tracks in World War II for the Canadian Army the company experimented with new forms of track systems and developed an all-tracked heavy duty vehicle designed for logging and mining operations in extreme wilderness conditions, such as heavy snow or semi-liquid muskeg.
From the 1940s through the early 1970s Bombardier built the most successful snowcat models ever produced by any snowcat manufacturer. The Bombardier B12 and C18 were probably the precursors to the more modern Snow coach currently used by resorts for transporting tourists. In their day, the B12 and C18 vehicles were used as school buses, for mail delivery and as emergency vehicles in northern United States and Canada and were best suited to flat land conditions, frozen roadways or frozen lakes.” (2011 Wikipedia)