Fishing in mid march - how to do it on the cheap

[sergv]

So i just realized that amtrak takes you from St paul to DL with an overnight which sounds like an AWESOME deal. However, when you get there, the only options i've found is getting a fishing guide and prices are pretty much the same everywhere - around 200/person/day. We might have 3-6 ppl so a 3 day fishing trip could cost 1800-3600 bucks! That seems very expensive. Ideally, I would like to rent a guide for a day and then try 2 days on our own, but w/o a car or another method of transportation we are pretty much stuck. Any advice on how to minimize the costs? Anyone out there would be willing to rent a 4w drive car? (hehe)

[Fish'n guy]

best bet is to get your 3-6 people into a vehicle or maybe 2 and everybody split the gas, hotel, bait, and food evenly. if you do it right 4 guys shouldnt have to pay more than $200 total for the 3 day trip. We did it this way and smoked em! first time on devils and we did our own thing. cheap trip, learned a bit about the lake, caught some pigs and lots of em. will be going back for sure...had a blast!

[sergv]

key that i guess I did not make it clear - we want to take the train

[riverview]

isnt there a car rental in dl? train there rent a 4wd. call the airport to findout about renting a 4x4

[sergv]

there are a couple of car rental places in DL, but they only rent regular cars - nothing 4wd!

[pikerliker]

I'm kind of in the same boat as you sergv but I'm driving out early March. I would have to pay the guide for 4 people as I'm bringing my 2 sons and a nephew. So that would be abut 1600 out of my pocket just for a guide for 2 days of fishing where you MIGHT have some luck. Sorry not in this guys budget. I'm doing all I can to afford getting out there and renting some housing to stay at. I have some ideas on where I want to go, but it's a big lake so hopefully luck is on my side. I'm just going to try to fish structure, depth and hope for the best from there.

~piker

[TylerS]

Don't take the dang perch patrol train. Waste of time. Just pile all your buddies into a couple vehicles and head up there without any restrictions.