Christmas gift idea

[Nova]

We hunt a smaller 200-300 acre lake up near Fergus. My Dad likes to hunt the lake cause we have land right up to it and a dock with blind built right on it and you can get to it by wheeler. I like him hunting there because he is nearing 70 years old and sometimes hunts by himself. It's much safer there than off at a public lake where you have to load and unload your boat and all that. Anyway, the lake is only 10' deep at the deepest spot so it freezes up fairly early. I got this idea that I was going to take a sum pump customize it to a goose decoy so he can put it right in front of the blind. In the evening when it's cold he could hook it up to my generator that runs 10 hours on a tank of gas and leave it run all night. This would keep the water open so he could hunt there later in the year without having to break ice every morning. My question is do you think this would work? secondly is it legal? I seriously want opinions on this so if you think it's idiotic tell me and if you have modifications that would work better I would like to hear that too. I also thought if we needed to run it during the day I could make a box with vent holes and camo it up to cover the generator. The genny is a honda 1000 which you can't hear run from 30' away anyhow, but I would still cover if. I can't wait to hear the responses.

[Sartell Angler]

sounds like a great idea to me...I know a lot of guys down south use devices to keep ice from forming. I haven't heard anything about this practice being illegal either down there or up here.

We got a new trolling motor for our fishing boat this past summer and I took the old one, modified it, and now I plan to use it to keep water open by attaching it to a fallen tree or something. Didn't put it to use this year but maybe next year.

Good luck, and I'm sure there will be plenty of more educated responses coming from others.

SA/wdw

[airdriver]

remember, you can't leave decoys out while you are away for more than four hours on public land or water. The goose trick would be a decoy. Best bet, ask a C/O.

[poutpro]

If its public, make it to just look like a bunch of weeds, but it sounds like you're talking about private anyways.