As the shallow water bite that James and I fished earlier in the season continues to taper off with the thicker ice and snow killing off the weeds it’s now time to head out to some deeper water. However with some of the most extreme weather conditions that we’ve seen in years, rainstorms, extreme cold, wind, and more wind all mixed together, having limited our options to go looking for fish in deeper water I decided that maybe the idea of staying dry and warm in a permanent shack out-weighed the lack of mobility.
While I know my Insulated Otter Pro Lodge could have easily handled even these extreme conditions and I did feel a little like I was “wimping out” I quickly remembered how much fun it can be catching walleyes in my slippers these past two weekends. We were set up in 31 FOW just on the outside edge of a sand to mud transition and we managed to introduce ourselves to over 40 hungry walleyes by just sitting still.
The reason I mention all of this is that while most of my reports here on IDO require lots of gear (portable ice house, warm clothes, boots, flasher, rods, etc) if someone wanted to duplicate the past 2 weekends that I spent fishing out of our permanent house by renting a shack on Mille Lacs it could require nothing more than a bucket of bait and a pair of slippers to wear in the shack. You hardly would have needed electronics or fishing rods as 90% of our fish were caught on rattle reels.
As someone who loves the challenge of overcoming Mother Nature and outworking everyone else to find the best bites it sure was nice to take it easy for a couple weekends and enjoy hot fishing in a dry, warm shack. If anyone out there is thinking about renting a house on Mille Lacs or even Red Lake or LOTW I’ve got just one question – What’s stopping you? Give the good folks up at Red Door or one of the other resorts on Mille Lacs a call, grab your slippers, and don’t forget the camera!