Ice House Theft Experiences

[Animal]

I'm going to put a wheeled fish house on LOW-Wheelers Point. I plan to leave it up there on the ice. For those of you with experience with fish houses, generally speaking, what is the likelihood of thefts or breakins?

[Dan Thiem]

I don't know about everybody else, but locks just keep honest people honest.If the crooks want in they will break in.
Some people don't even lock their houses.They simply don't leave anything in them and just leave them unlocked.
We have had ours locked and only had it broken into once in ten years.Lucky there was nothing of too much value inside.All of the fish houses around us got broke into that night.I think it was kids looking for booze.

[Kidd]

I would, at a minimum, get one of those hitch locks, the kind that fit's into the ball area of the hitch, to make it difficult to drive away. I might even consider taking the wheels off. The last permanent I had I left unlock (Metro area). If they want in they'll smash the door. Transport anything of value and let them in to look around.
Good luck.

[woodman]

Last winter my fish house was vandalized bad! They used a big sludge hammer and smashed the door into bits and then cleaned my shelves off down the holes. They then proceded to use their sludge to put a nice big hole in my table. I guess they were mad because nothing was left in the house. I am now receiving payments for the damage and am building another house on wheels!

I pull my wheels off and my hitch. If they want in they are going to get in one way or another. A cop friend said they often hook on the door handle with a chain and pull the door off with their truck. Maybe I need to hook up a electric shock to the door handle!

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Keep the lines wet!

Woodman

Today's Tackle
Air Plugs

[Eric Wettschreck]

I guess I'm lucky. I've never had my house broken into or vandalized.

The lake my house is usually on is a fairly small and local lake. The few other guys out there all know each other real well and look out for each other.

I don't lock my house. But, I take everything with me when I leave. I've gone out to my house and found people in it. (I knew them).

[BDR]

I have had a house out on a East central lake several years. We have been broken into 3 times and now I wouldn't even lock the door. I have also came out in the morning to find 2 walls completely smashed in from some truck that was doing donuts on the ice. Of course no note. Thats a major bummer, but Im glad I wasn't sleeping in it that night.

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Brian Rogers

Iceleaders
JR's Tackle
Catch-N Tackle and Bio-Bait

[email protected]

[Ole1855]

In 25 years of having a house on Mille Lacs I only had one break-in and they didn't take a thing!!! I don't know if somebody broke in to use the house or get warm, but I had ALOT of good stuff in there they could have stolen. I had my auger, jig rods, stereo, booze, tackle, sleeping bags etc.... The biggest problem I had was the door wouldn't stay shut and I showed up at 8:00 pm so there wasn't any hardware store open to get what I needed to make repairs until the next morning.

However, about 10 years ago, I was in my fish house and a buddy of mine had a house about 100 yrds. away from me. On Sunday nite he stopped in and said he was leaving, not more than 5 minutes after he left I heard some noise outside, I look out the window and see someone breaking into my buddies house. I called him on his cell phone and told him what was happening, what the truck looked like and told him to stay at the end of the road near the highway. He called the cops and parked crossways at the exit ramp. After the guys loaded the truck with his stuff, they drove toward shore, I followed and we all met the sheriff at the landing. The sheriff busted the guys and my buddy ended up staying to make repairs to his fish house door.

Some times we get the bad guys!!!

[The Grebe]

We have never left anything of value in a fish house that would warrant theft and I can say that in the times we have had one out, we did'nt experience any problems. As we got older, we have went to strictly portables, more mobility, so many lakes, so little time!

We have been hit by vehicles and snowmobiles and once when I was fishing a lake in Wright county, I was leaned back against the wall of my canvas portable and a geek on a snowmobile came flying by and whacked me in the back when he passed!

Had I been able to identify him, or had he had some kind of mechanical difficulty that would have shut his machine down, I would have had no problem wrapping my ice chiesel around his head and turning his sled into a pile of scrap metal! But, I digress, it's to early to start woofing!

We always found that it was a good idea to put some kind of lock on the door, because we did, on a couple of occassions, have someone come into our unlocked house and use it for a toilet...nasty!!! I believe that the lock deters this from happening for the most part....!

[korn_fish]

If you know you are going to be leaving your house in the same spot for any time, I suggest at least removing tires. And if your hitch isn't removable, lock it or make it removable.

[stmichael]

I had a piece of **** of a fish house on Long Lake, in New Brighton. It had a topper for a top. you could see everything outside it was comfortable, anyways, I left a sign in it. " please leave it the way you found it" one weekend they took the dome lights out, ripped the wiring out. broke a window, left trash all over. all sorts of junk in the holes. the next time we were out there we had a suitcase of whities and stacked the shelf, beer case to cover broken window. move the fish house to clean holes.

I could not lock it, it had a piece of styrofoam insulation for the bottom half of the door.

[beer batter]

I built my first shack last year and had it broke into twice in the west metro. I had to replace my door once, and still have to replace my stolen wall mount vented furnace.

I had a locked door that was very difficult to break in to, so they just kicked in the framing around the door to get in. Now I'm just going to put a hasp and padlock on the door to keep 'em honest. Just don't want to make it too easy for them to come take a 'steamer' down my holes. They'll still be able to get in with just a pry bar, but hopefully they won't vandalize it. I've never left anything of real value (other than the furnace they stole) and don't plan on it.

Break-in's are more common in the metro, but you're kidding yourself if you don't think it happens out-state too.