2016 IDO Get Together Announced on Leech Lake!

Kudo’s Josh!!

How much ice before you allow smaller trucks to pull out smaller houses on your roads? Like a explorer sport Trac with 6.5 x 12′ house. 12″? 14″? Hoping I can come up monday for the week, sounds like fun.

We are probably going to wait until it gets about 11-12 inches just to be safe with them. I did see a small ranger go out yesterday but was not off of our road. We might be open to vehicle traffic next weekend, since we have a road cleared and it might be thick enough by then. I will know more by this weekend.

Here’s some updated on the ice pics to get everyone going.

Excited for next weekend! Can we still fish around the area. If im not staying there?? Im not gonna bother anyone

Dylan Johnson wrote:

Excited for next weekend! Can we still fish around the area. If im not staying there?? Im not gonna bother anyone

Plenty of Lake for you come up and fish on. Its big water.

Here is a quick update for everyone. We will be allowing truck traffic starting on Monday. We have 11.5 to 12 inches of ice currently and have ice houses 3- 4 miles from our resort right now. If you can escape from some of the heavily pressured areas you will find fish, and keeping on the move during the day will be the best way to catch some hungry walleye. The bite still is in that 14-18 ft range during the lowlight hours and during the day sliding deeper is the way to go. We have seen a lot of nice fish come out of the rental houses so those of you who will be in the houses you have a good chance at some real nice walleye. Temps this week will be below zero so we are looking forward to having vehicle traffic for the event. Still have plenty of lodging available for rent if you would like somewhere to stay. Let me know if you have any questions.

-Josh

How much snow is there off your roads? Any problems pulling a 6×12 house around with a 4wheeler? Other than your 3-4 mile road going north, do you have roads stretching east and west? Just trying to figure out what vehicle/house/set up I all need to bring. Thanks!

BJ Lange wrote:

How much snow is there off your roads? Any problems pulling a 6×12 house around with a 4wheeler? Other than your 3-4 mile road going north, do you have roads stretching east and west? Just trying to figure out what vehicle/house/set up I all need to bring. Thanks!

We have some going east west, hoping we will be out towards big rock reef by next week and pelican island. We only have maybe 2 inches of snow on the ice and minimal drifting. People are able to move around fairly easily. We are not expecting any more snow so it should be good for next week. We will let out some vehicles starting Monday.

Just an update for everyone out there.

We did have some single digit lows over the weekend and have 11 1/2 inches of ice right now. We have seen some smaller lighter vehicle traffic on the lake. I have even seen a suburban out there, they did not go through us. I am still suggesting that you travel by ATV or Snowmobile traffic since I have found some 9 1/2 inch spots out there. It is good hard ice out there.
For those of you who may need to get there ice houses towed out please call Nate at Lakewood Lodges, they run our ice road and ice houses at 218-330-9999 to schedule a time to get your ice house pulled out if you need help. They do charge for that service depending on how far you want your ice house out.
For those of you who have ice houses through us, we will meet you down at the landing on Friday morning at 8 am to be shown where your ice houses are. We are hoping to have enough ice to drive should know by Wednesday, which I know is last second.

Fishing has been good for a lot of the anglers out there. Make sure you always have a dead stick or the rattle wheels down. The jigging seems to draw them in and they end up hitting the dead stick. We have not had huge numbers of fish but the fish are very quality with a lot of large fish being caught and some very big northerns as well. Here are some pics from the past weekend. We still have some rooms available for this event.

Josh,
Is there any lodging and ice houses left for 4 people for the IDO Get Together? Three of my buddies and I are heading up this Thursday from Arizona for our annual ice fishing trip and are interested in joining the event. If, not we may come up for a day from the Whitefish Chain. Let me know.

Thx, Shawn

BDD wrote:

Josh,
Is there any lodging and ice houses left for 4 people for the IDO Get Together? Three of my buddies and I are heading up this Thursday from Arizona for our annual ice fishing trip and are interested in joining the event. If, not we may come up for a day from the Whitefish Chain. Let me know.

Thx, Shawn

Yes we do still have that left. Please call Rachel at the front desk to book that I will be out around the property today getting ready for the event. 218-836-2500. She can book you in. Look forward to seeing you.

Just a quick update since we are getting close to the event and I am getting a lot of questions on ice conditions.

We do have 12 inches of ice, and we do follow the DNR guidelines on ice. We have a plowed road that has a little more then 12 inches right now on it and we have had some mid sized truck traffic on those parts. Most people are following the road and doing just fine with their truck and wheel house(the largest I have out right now for somebody is 8 x24), if they go slow out to their spots. For those of you who rented with us, we do have some transportation to the ice houses for you, but it is not like a LOTW experience, no Bombardiers here, its an atv pulling a trailer just letting people know and we only have 1 set up so it may take a while to get everyone out there. If you want to get back and forth faster please bring your ATV or Snowmobile, especially if you want to get out and explore. You will catch more fish moving around during the day. Fishing has been good out of the houses especially during the low light times and we are scouting for fish and moving houses accordingly, we do have all of them rented so moving a house may not be an option for this trip. We try to keep them on fish and most of them this will be the first time on those spots.
We will have bait on site to purchase I carry a mixed minnow of Rainbows and fatheads you can buy them on site. If you have any other questions feel free to call the resort 218-836-2500, Rachel will probably answer since I will be out working around the resort getting stuff ready for this weekend, she knows how to ice fish and knows all the current conditions and can help you with any other questions about the lakehome rentals and ice houses. Looking forward to the event and hopefully everyone will catch fish, its looking like we are fishing right up next to a large cold front.

Does anyone have room for one guy (me) to fish with them on Friday only. Can only get away for one day. Live in Grand Rapids so can be there first thing Friday morning. Disabled vet (agent orange issues) so need to fish with others in case I have medical issues. Thanks. Arnie

This is gonna be one hell of a time!!! Josh seen you were fishing with James! Bet that was a blast!

Josh,

We live close by and would like to stop in for part of the GTG. If we come out for the day in portables and go back to the lodge for drinks/food is there a set time the indoor event is planning to start? Are we able to purchase food on site or just drinks if we’re not registered? We wouldn’t need a full meal plan but would enjoy coming in after fishing and have some food if that’s possible?

Thanks

PM sent Arnie

So it’s good to go for trucks, just stay on the marked roads? Also, any specific time people will be getting together in the bar for dinner and drinks?

wish I could make it but I have a tip up contest to go to. Good luck you guys have fun!!! Can’t wait for next year.

Hope everybody had and is having an awesome time. Wish i could have come. My daughter got super sick

Sorry I did not get back to everybody’s posts on here. Just a final wrap up of the event. We had good turnout for the event and I got to meet a lot of great people and even got to get out and catch a few fish. The fishing was tough for a lot of anglers mainly due to the weird weather pattern and the major cold front that pushed into the area. The biggest walleye that I heard of was a 28″ fish, we did hear of some limits being caught as well. Lots of northerns were cleaned too. Overall I am sure that we could have had some better fishing but that’s what keeps us coming back for more. I would like to say thank you to all the people that stayed on site and for all that came to visit. Also thank you to all the In-Depth Outdoors crew, Striker Ice, I-Fish, Tuned Up Custom rods, and Larsmont Cottages on Lake Superior for letting me use some of their employees for this event. Again Thank you to all that attended. Here are a few pics from this past weekend for everyone.

Thank you everyone for coming out to the IDO GTG 2016 at Trappers! We all had a blast and we will be posting photos today!

Thanks everyone for the awesome weekend… I was finally able to take some time over lunch and get a report up.

http://www.in-depthoutdoors.com/fishing/reports/deep-freeze-leech-lake-walleyes-ido-get-together-report/

And here are a few left over pics that didn’t get used in the report.