This is the story of four Canadian friends who found a gutted airplane online, bought it, and turned it into an ice fishing shack. What else!
Continue reading and find out how Lee Saretsky and his friends turned an old plane into a fully functioning ice fishing shack!
As a writer of fishing news, every once in a while, I come across a truly unique and bizarre fishing tale.
The very idea of using an airplane for ice fishing is so odd (and so Canadian); I just had to track down Lee (one of the four friends who bought the plane) and ask him for an interview.
Thankfully, he agreed and sent me a bunch really cool images of the plane on the ice together with his answers.
I don’t know where the idea came from, but I’m glad these guys thought it up and that I happened to read about this online.
Back in 2022, Lee Saretsky and three of his buddies found a gutted airplane on Facebook’s Marketplace.
Now, most ice anglers would have probably just scrolled past that plane, but not Lee and his friends!
They are Canadian ice anglers from Saskatchewan, and apparently, those guys do things a little differently! So, naturally, they bought the plane…to go ice fishing with it.
Lee told me that the price tag for this old plane was a mere $3000. A real bargain, in other words!
“Once we saw it on Marketplace it was the obvious answer.”
– Lee Saretsky
The four bought the plane in September 2022 and got it on the ice for the very first time in January 2024.
That means they’ve worked on the plane for almost one and a half years to turn it into an ice shack and get it ready for action.
That, my friends, is what I call some serious dedication!
“We did all the work ourselves and got a local guy to spray foam for insolation.”
– Lee Saretsky
When everything was ready, the guys had turned an old, rusty airplane into a functioning, safe, and cozy ice shack that has room for up to 18 people and is kept warm by two diesel heaters.
You can even do overnighters in this thing. Isn’t that just amazing?
Once they got it onto the ice of Last Mountain Lake in Saskatchewan, the guys took a few pictures and posted them on their social media.
Needless to say, the posts blew up. Again, this isn’t something you see every day!
Of course, the plane also turns heads on the ice. Whenever people see it, they want to check it out. Who wouldn’t want to, right?
However, Lee and his buddies have no plans to turn this into a tourist attraction. They mainly just want to use it for their ice fishing adventures with their friends and families.
Again, totally understandable, in my opinion!
Right now, they plan to keep the plane on the ice until early March, trying to fish in it every weekend. At least!
Currently, the ice on Last Mountain is 22 inches, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
So far, they’ve only been fishing the area off Pelican’s Point, but they might take it elsewhere on the giant water body that is Last Mountain Lake.
Lee’s also got plans to bring it to the Regina Beach Derby, which is an annual ice fishing contest on the lake.
I’m sure the people there would love to see that!
The last thing I asked Lee was where they store this thing during the rest of the year when there’s no ice on the lakes up there.
His short answer was:
“In the hangar at our friend’s acreage.”
– Lee Saretsky
Of course, one of his friends has a hangar at his acreage. But who doesn’t have one, right? Again, so very charmingly Canadian!
I barely have enough space for all my fishing gear down in my little basement, and these guys have their own hangar to park their unconventionally huge ice shack in.
That’s what I call true luxury!
I thought about one last thing during the interview, and I want you guys to imagine this together with me.
Wouldn’t it be so cool if the four could actually fly this bird down to the lake, land it directly on the ice, and then just get fishing?
I mean, how convenient wouldn’t that be! And it would save so much time.
That could be the next level for Lee and his buddies’ ice fishing plane.
But that story will have to be told another time.
I want to thank Lee for doing the interview with me and providing me with all these fantastic images you saw in the article. I mean, just look at this last image! I am truly lost for words when I look at this.
I sincerely hope you enjoyed this read and that you are as amused and fascinated by this as I am!
And if you ever find an old, gutted airplane for sale online, you now know exactly what to do with it.
Tight lines out there!
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