Meaning of metal on ice shacks

[HairyBagpipes]

Just wondering if anyone knows the meaning of the metal squares, circles and diamonds that you see nailed around the doors of some of the older hard shacks.

[hardwater diehard]

Night time reflective surface maybe .

[zcm_82]

Maybe fish house tags? You had to buy one every year back when I was living in MN. Had license # and the year on it.

[Rebelss]

Maybe their doors were falling off.......never seen that before in all my years. Seen a lot of other weird stuff on houses though. 

[HairyBagpipes]

[Ronnie D]

Liquor & a spear combo

[Rebelss]

Good question.....I can tell you as far back as I've seen ice houses (over 55 yrs or more) I've never seen those here in Minnysoda on a Minnesota shack...now ya got me curious!!!!

Note: Just sent the pic to a CO at the Minnesota DNR office.....I asked him to find out for us! 
I'll post his reply as soon as I get it...

[HairyBagpipes]

I ask because I’m in NY and growing up, my Grandfather had them on all of his shacks he ever built. But I never knew why.

[Rebelss]

Well, maybe now we'll know in a bit...I'd sure like to. That was a good question!

[Baetis62]

Growing up in WI a lot of guys would have unique color combinations or shapes painted on the exterior.  I always assumed it was so you could find your shack or help buddies find you when there were hundred's of shacks on the lake.  Not sure about the metal.  Great question.

[HWeber]

MN or MI I think seen someone collecting them on a spearing page. Can't remember if it was a house licence or spearing licence

[hawg]

Those are license tags. Much better than the paper ones we get now.

[zcm_82]

Good question.....I can tell you as far back as I've seen ice houses (over 55 yrs or more) I've never seen those here in Minnysoda on a Minnesota shack...now ya got me curious!!!!

Note: Just sent the pic to a CO at the Minnesota DNR office.....I asked him to find out for us! 
I'll post his reply as soon as I get it...

You had to get them for hardsides when I was a kid, woulda been the mid/late 80s. I remember most of Dad's were square, but a couple were round too. He got rid of the permie when he sold his truck, though. Couldn't really haul it in the back of a Subaru wagon 

[Rebelss]

Dang! I've never noticed that!  But has to be a permit or license tag...and I'll agree, better than the stupid way ya had to do porties some years back...and hardsides. Ten years ago was even worse with having tags and license numbers and paper copy displayed and in/on yer shack. Minnesota can really screw up stuff when the DNR gets involved. 

[zcm_82]

Yeah, it was the paper tags on the portables when I was back up there in the early/mid 2000s. I still had a few years of them safety pinned on my old InsTent right up until I replaced it with the DX3000 a few years back.

All you need here is your name and either address or license # somewhere on the outside of the portable, no hardsides allowed down here.

[Rebelss]

UPDATE: Just got an Email back from Carly at the DNR.....and you guys are right! 

"Those are the old tags issued to fish shelters on the ice"....



Pretty much the same thing as the trapping tags we used to have to have on our traplines in the state game refuge ...

[hawg]

Thanks again for reminding me how old I am. It doesn’t seem that long ago!?!?🤯

[Rebelss]

Thanks again for reminding me how old I am. It doesn’t seem that long ago!?!?🤯

 Just ask me.

[tomturkey]

In Michigan you are required to have your name and address on your permanent shanties.

We also have to have a tag on all of our traps. Now they can have your Drivers License on them to be legal instead of your name and address.

[hawg]

Metal tags worked great, wish they (DNR) would come their senses and go back to them. Chances of that is about 1 in 10 though.

[filetandrelease]

 Name and address on permanent  shack , no longer need it on traps , and we can legally now run 7 devices in any combination

[Rebelss]

Name and address on shack, OR yer DNR#, which never changes. Just like a DL #. I stenciled and spray-painted mine on my shack. PLUS, a $15 porty tag in possession. %$#@  Minnesota.   They came out with that idiocy about the same time you haveta have a ski sticker on yer XC skis...can't just head out for a nice thru-the-woods-ski without shelling out more bucks and messing up yer skis. 

[kasilofchrisn]

I remember those old tags growing up in Minnesota.
Different shapes for different years as I recall. still had to have a name and address on it as well iirc .
Kind of like when we had color coded fishing licenses up here in AK. You could just hold them up in your boat and if everyone had the correct color for that year and you weren't acting suspicious they often let you go back to fishing after a few simple questions.
That way they didn't have to tie up to your boat in the rivers current of the ocean swells.
Of course now we just print them off at home so color doesn't matter anymore. 
But those old tags worked well on the old hard sides. No stickers or glue. Just nail them on. We used to wire them to the zippers on our portables.