Wheelhouses on ice

Fish houses are lined up on Lake Winnibigoshish in winter 2021.

Red Door Resort maintains roughly 220 ice fishing sites on Lake Mille Lacs, with roughly 70 spaces reserved for wheelhouses.

Wheel houses are parked on Lake Winnibigoshish after driving out a resort ice road.

Wheelhouses becoming new norm on Minnesota ice

Sales ‘extremely strong’ during pandemic

BY DAN DETERMAN

Ice fishing has always been a staple activity for Minnesotans, especially in the lakes area, but a new phenomenon has seemingly taken the sport over in the past decade as smaller fish houses have given way to the wheelhouse - often larger structures with features more akin to an RV.

At resorts on larger lakes like Mille Lacs, wheelhouses have become a tremendous part of the business model.

“The wheelhouse boom has completely transformed the industry over the last 10 years, and will continue to do so,” Red Door Resort owner Brian Linne said.

Red Door Resort, on the north side of Mille Lacs Lake, has roughly 220 sites it rents for individuals in the winter, with roughly 90 houses of its own brought out onto the 15-mile stretch of ice it maintains. Then, the resort rents spaces for 60 to 70 wheelhouses, keeping the spaces clear throughout the season.

With many people accruing additional savings during the pandemic, wheelhouses seemed to have been a popular purchase for lake goers.

“Sales have been extremely strong, especially lately with the pandemic,” said Brett Drexler, team leader at Ice Castle Fish Houses. “I think people are looking for something to do and the recreational lifestyle boomed.”

Business was very strong at Red Door Resort in 2019 for ice fishing, largely due to weather making the ice at resorts farther north impassable early in the season.

“A lot of those resorts and other access points further north were closed for a while that season,” Linne said. “We actually had pretty good ice from that standpoint, so we ended up with a lot of that traffic (that may have gone to other lakes).”

In 2020, the weather was more cooperative state-wide, but Red Door saw a similar amount of business.

Linne believes the COVID-19 pandemic was absolutely a factor in the popularity of ice fishing over the winter months, as well as the increase in wheelhouse sales.

“Our fish houses were 100% booked on

In recent years, area resorts who cater to ice anglers have had to make more room for larger wheelhouses.

Photos by Nancy Vogt

Photos by Nancy Vogt

The hazy sun hangs over a group of fish houses on a Minnesota lake.

Photos by Nancy Vogt

TOP ROW LEFT TO RIGHT: A wheelhouse is brought onto the ice of Lake Mille Lacs from Red Door Resort.

Submitted photos

the weekends,” Linne said. “People were itching to get out, which was nice … From an anecdotal standpoint, I know that there were people who ordered wheelhouses having to wait 12 weeks for delivery. There was hardly a wait in the previous year.”

Over at Ice Castle, Drexler said they currently have a six- to eight-month backlog on new orders, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic halting supply chains and raising the cost of materials, making it difficult to finish custom products.

Ice Castle employees believe the strong sales numbers of 2020 may not have had as much to do with fishing as it has with their products being “all-around recreational vehicles.”

“Many customers used their Ice Castle as a way to quarantine from others, or they simply turned them into an office away from the office,” Drexler said. “Many of our units are not just used for ice fishing, but also camping and hunting shacks as well.”

Linne said the only issues he sees at his resort stem from anglers in traditional skid houses “not really loving” the additional traffic that wheelhouses bring. More space needs to be cleared on the ice to make way for these large enclosures, but Linne does not mind.

“The ability to create really nice, wide roads and being able to plow really nice slots in for some of those wheelhouses, I think it presents an opportunity for us,” he said.

With the effects of the pandemic continuing to linger somewhat, Linne believes he will cater to more and more wheelhouses in the future as people continue to pursue outdoor activities.

“I think that things are going to continue to expand this way,” he said. “As COVID’s impact persists, I think people are going to want to continue to embrace ice fishing, especially when you can do it from the comfort of something as nice as a wheelhouse.”

DAN DETERMAN is a staff writer for the Pineandlakes Echo Journal weekly newspaper in Pequot Lakes/Pine River. He may be reached at 218-855-5879 or dan.determan@pineandlakes.com.