CROOKSTON – Families who want to give ice fishing a try now have an opportunity to test the waters in the comfort of a heated aluminum fish house on the Red Lake River in Crookston.
It’s as simple as reserving a time slot at the local Ace Hardware store and picking up the key.
ADVERTISEMENT
Gear, tackle and bait are provided, the holes are drilled and the heat is always on.
The new ice fishing opportunity comes about through the efforts of Get Kids Outdoors, a Crookston-based nonprofit formed in the fall of 2023 by the family of Adam Parnow. An avid outdoorsman, Parnow was killed in a June 2023 crop-spraying accident, and his family launched Get Kids Outdoors as a way to honor his legacy.
Get Kids Outdoors to date has hosted both winter and summer youth fishing events, and the brand-new fish house marks yet another chapter in the organization’s efforts to promote and provide youth and family outdoors opportunities.
The skid-style fish house is available for families across the region to use at no charge, said Fred Parnow, Adam’s dad and a founder of Get Kids Outdoors. At least one adult must accompany young anglers who use the fish house, Parnow said.
“We’re providing it for families to use, and we don’t care where the families come from – just so there’s an adult or two with the kids,” Parnow said.
Manitoba inspiration
Parnow says he came up with the idea of offering a fish house for families to use about a year ago, after attending an ice fishing show in Winnipeg and learning about the Lockport Ice Fishing Village that’s set up every winter on the Red River at Lockport, Manitoba, once ice conditions are safe.
ADVERTISEMENT
Like the Ice Fishing Village, the Get Kids Outdoors fish house is all about promoting family activities, Parnow says.
“This gives families an opportunity to spend the day together, but then get a chance to hook (a fish) and take a picture of the kids with their fish,” he said.
Made by Soderbloom Manufacturing near Cromwell, Minnesota, the custom-made 6x12-foot Aluma-Lite brand fish house has six holes, a wall-mounted LP gas heater and lights that are powered by two 12-volt batteries and a solar charging panel.
“We chose the Aluma-Lite brand because they’re an all-aluminum frame house, they’re very lightweight, and they’re easy to move,” Parnow said. “They were very good to work with as far as designing a custom-made house.”
Because the house is set up on the river, where current comes into play, it was built with the holes all on the same side to minimize the chance of tangled lines, Parnow said.
Walk in and fish
Upon reserving the house, all families have to do is turn the heat up when they get inside and “turn it down to a given temperature” when they leave, Parnow said. Families can reserve the house for a minimum of two hours, he said, with four hours being kind of a standard.
ADVERTISEMENT
“We keep the heat on all the time – therefore, the holes do not freeze over,” Parnow said. “When they first walk in, all the fishing rods are there, we have excess tackle there, and it’s all provided at no charge.
“They get their bait at the hardware store, and we are also purchasing the bait, so there’s absolutely no charge to the family.”
Families sign a liability waiver upon picking up the key, Parnow says, along with an agreement that kids’ fishing photos can be published on social media or traditional outlets.
Safety and education
Personnel from CHS Ag Services in Crookston plumbed in the heater and propane tanks, Parnow said, and tested everything for leaks. In addition, Tom Hutchins, a Crookston-based conservation officer for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, took a look at the house to make sure everything was “proper in the eyes of the DNR.”
“We’ve taken every precaution that we can think of to provide a safe experience for these families,” Parnow said. “Kids and families are having fun.”
The fish house also offers a learning opportunity for young anglers. The DNR supplied posters for the fish house walls with information on everything from Minnesota fish species and aquatic invasive species, to trees of Minnesota, Parnow said.
“Pretty much everything we’re doing, along with the activity, we feel compelled to have an educational component weaved into it somehow,” he said. “When they sit there waiting for the fish to bite, they can read these posters and learn about the environment and the outdoors in Minnesota and North Dakota.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Rydell Cars and the Crookston Area Community Fund both made major contributions toward the cost of the fish house, Parnow says, along with several individual donors.
The support, he says, has been “overwhelming.”
Testing the waters
On New Year’s Eve morning, the four Wentzel sisters – Eliza, 6; Amelia, 8; SidaLee, 11; and Israelle, 3, of Fisher, Minnesota – tried their luck at ice fishing.
Accompanied by their dad, Fred, the girls didn’t catch any fish, but they had a few bites.
“I got a line in the water for all of them, and then they’re like, ‘Dad, my line’s tangled. Dad, my bobber doesn’t go down. Dad this, Dad that’ … and so it begins,” Fred Wentzel said with a laugh. “They were just happy to have a line in the water, and they were all jigging and yelling ‘Here, fishy, fishy, fishy.’ ”
It’s the “perfect little house” to have on the river for families to try, said Wentzel, who also was good friends with Adam Parnow.
“Adam was very passionate about kids being out there and just loved to see the different kids going out,” Wentzel said. “It really kind of gives me goosebumps because I know Adam would have loved something like this, and it just kind of fits right up his alley.”
ADVERTISEMENT
The fish house has been available since Dec. 31, and fishing so far has been on the slow side, but that can change at any time; that’s the beauty of river fishing. Besides walleyes and saugers, anglers using the house also could potentially catch northern pike, goldeye or perhaps even a bass.
You just never know.
“We’ll have this house out there for many years,” Fred Parnow said. “We just hope the people that use it, the families, respect the house, keep it clean, don’t damage it and those types of things.
“If it gets damaged, it’s going to be gone, we’ll pull it off (the ice). So take care of it – leave it like it is.”
To schedule a time slot for the fish house, call Ace Hardware in Crookston at (218) 281-1749.
- On the web:
The Trust Project
