Well myself and 6 of my friends hit up Lake Champlain this past weekend. This was quite a trip. We rented 2 1960-something campers turned ice-shantys from Martins General Store. It is quite a cool setup. You make reservations and then just show up. Captain Gil (as he likes to be called) takes you out to your shanty and shows you what to do. He has the campers all set up for you on the ice and plows out roads onto the ice so you can drive out.

Now for the fishing. SLOW is the only way to describe it. All day saturday and sunday we fished with approximately 25 traps scattered around our shantys. We managed to catch 4 Northern Pike. 2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. 3 of the fish were rather small, no bigger than a pickeral I could catch at my local pond. My friend Mike did manage one lunker, 8 lbs. 12 oz. Not sure on the length. That was the one monster of the weekend. The only consolation is that nobody else seemed to be catching anything either.

It was a fun trip and with the exception of the sub-zero temps. Friday night and Saturday morning the weather was quite good. We had fun and I would certainly recommend Captain Gil and his Ice shantys.

Captain Gil's web site is www.bronzebackguideservice.com

I hope those Shanty's were heated.

John S.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Replying to:

Well myself and 6 of my friends hit up Lake Champlain this past weekend. This was quite a trip. We rented 2 1960-something campers turned ice-shantys from Martins General Store. It is quite a cool setup. You make reservations and then just show up. Captain Gil (as he likes to be called) takes you out to your shanty and shows you what to do. He has the campers all set up for you on the ice and plows out roads onto the ice so you can drive out.

Now for the fishing. SLOW is the only way to describe it. All day saturday and sunday we fished with approximately 25 traps scattered around our shantys. We managed to catch 4 Northern Pike. 2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. 3 of the fish were rather small, no bigger than a pickeral I could catch at my local pond. My friend Mike did manage one lunker, 8 lbs. 12 oz. Not sure on the length. That was the one monster of the weekend. The only consolation is that nobody else seemed to be catching anything either.

It was a fun trip and with the exception of the sub-zero temps. Friday night and Saturday morning the weather was quite good. We had fun and I would certainly recommend Captain Gil and his Ice shantys.

Captain Gil's web site is www.bronzebackguideservice.com

Oh yes they have small propane heaters in the shantys. They were plenty warm.

Sounds like a fun weekend, oh to be young and crazy once again, well I'm still a bit crazy soemtimes.

John S.

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Replying to:

Oh yes they have small propane heaters in the shantys. They were plenty warm.

Did you spend the night right out in the shanty's? How much room? Any rate info would be great. Thanks...Heading up that way on the 9th and 10th.

Yes you can sleep right in the shanty and they have heat and bunks. Capt. Gil has different ones available. We got the old camping trailers that he had insulated. The cost for an 18 footer was $95 a night. He also has smaller offerings for less money. The one that we had could have slept a max. of 5 people. I would give him a call if I were you. His place is called Martins General Store. Oh and by the way they sell the bait right there at the store. XLarge shiners. The lake is about a mile from the store and you can get there by snowmobile if you want.

www.bronzebackcharters.com

Let me know if you have any other questions Rene.

-John

Thanks John, appreciate the info.