Author Topic: Best place for charter/shanty rental?  (Read 1732 times)

Offline Tainted

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Best place for charter/shanty rental?
« on: Jan 12, 2019, 09:42 AM »
First time poster. Fishing is my passion, but I know absolutely nothing about ice fishing. All of my fishing is in Tampa Bay and offshore to 50 miles.

I’m getting married (again  :-\ ) in late February and looking for a charter ice fishing excursion as something of a bachelor party. It’ll probably just be me and my main fishing buddy, but maybe one or two others.

My thoughts are we’d fly into the closest airport, drive out to the area and spend the night. Fish all day on the second day. Maybe spend the night in the shanty. And fly back on the third day.  The less I have to do, the better. Especially driving.

I’m not looking to bring any fish back. I have plenty already. And I’m not looking for trophy sizes, but larger species would be preferred. (My typical bait tends to be larger than many freshwater targets.) and of course, I don’t want to go hours without a bite.

What little research I’ve done points to the Green Bay Area, lake champlain, or Lake of the Woods. Can anyone recommend a good charter/rental company to work with? Are there other locations that would be better to fish?

Offline FishinIsLife

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Re: Best place for charter/shanty rental?
« Reply #1 on: Jan 12, 2019, 10:05 AM »
For lake Champlain call Martin's general store in highgate springs VT. They have shacks they put on missisquoi Bay. Or Holiday harbor motel in North hero VT. There should be safe ice in February on lake Champlain but it is possible that hard sided shanties won't be out. I only have experience fishing the VT side of the lake from Burlington north to Canada border. From what I've read Champlain does not have much for ice yet, I don't live nearby anymore.

Offline tautog

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Re: Best place for charter/shanty rental?
« Reply #2 on: Jan 12, 2019, 10:22 AM »
It seems like your looking for more of an ice fishing resort type experience and why not it’s your bachelor party from what I have seen on videos on YouTube the have some full service “resorts” out in the upper mid west/Great Lakes, places like northern Minnesota where you can rent sleeper shacks and are supplied with whatever you need, shuttled around, etc.  I do not think a place with that level of amenities exists here in the northeast. 

Offline Jkoht

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Re: Best place for charter/shanty rental?
« Reply #3 on: Jan 12, 2019, 12:35 PM »
Sounds like you don't have a solid destination in mind. Lake of the woods, and also Upper Red Lake in northern MN both have various resorts that off sleeper shack rentals. There's also Lake Mille Lacs just north of the twin cities metro area that has lots of resorts offering sleeper shack rentals. Sleepers are fun, we rented an 8 bunk house on Red lake last year and had a blast, caught our limit of walleye too. I don't know if any of these places offer gear for rental though. Usually sleeper shacks will be set up with rattle reels that you could use, but then you never know if there's hooks attached or not because the previous renters may have taken their stuff with them. For what you'd want to do I'd reccomend flying into Minneapolis, renting a car, possibly stopping at a Walmart on your way out of town and picking up some cheap rods and tackle, and then going to lake Mille Lacs for a sleeper house rental. It will be about an hour and a half drive. Otherwise to go to the further ones you'd have to fly into Duluth which requires a transfer at the Minneapolis airport. There is the Eveleth airport further north but I'm sure its be the same transfer in Minneapolis and when you're in eveleth you don't have access to a Walmart, and I don't know whether they'd have rental cars either. If you just flew into Minneapolis and tried to drive to the northern two lakes you'd be on the road for anywhere from 4 to 6 hours just to get to the ice. Not a very fun prospect when you have a limited schedule. To close out I'll reccomend Agate Bay Resort on Mill Lacs. I've gone through them and they're very good.

Offline Tainted

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Re: Best place for charter/shanty rental?
« Reply #4 on: Jan 12, 2019, 05:46 PM »
Thanks guys. This is helpful.

No, I don’t have a specific destination in mind. And yes I’m looking for something  full service. In a perfect world, the outfitter would pick me up at the airport, make a quick stop at the beer store and put me on fish 10 minutes later.  When I fish in my home waters, I bust my butt and it pays off, but I want to be catered to on this trip.

 It sounds like I need to focus my search on the Minneapolis area.

I am hoping to find a rental that includes all tackle and gear, but should I be unable to find something like that, what tackle is recommended? I realize this can be species and geography dependent, but I might  already have some of what I need and can pack it. And I don’t mind buying way more than I need to cover every possible scenario; I’m used to it.

Offline esox_xtm

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Re: Best place for charter/shanty rental?
« Reply #5 on: Jan 12, 2019, 06:00 PM »
Twin Cities and north... Ice in Green Bay is still sketchy. Thank Al Gore.

Minnesota has probably the best full service ice fishing experiences. WI are basically day trips and any overnighters in MI are pretty spartan (no pun intended).
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