shelter licenses

[glenn57]

just a heads up as i read this today. new for this year shelter licenses are required for all ice shelters except for the portable clam type things. this does include ice castle type houses!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Retired on Osakis]

You are correct sir. I get the DNR e-mail newsletter and this was from yesterdays.

Fish houses and wheelhouses require license purchase for ice fishing
New definition of portable shelter expands types of structures needing to be licensed     

Beginning this ice fishing season, anglers using a wheelhouse type of ice or dark-house shelter are required to purchase a license to place the shelter on the ice, even when occupying it.

A new definition for portable shelters has been provided in law, which states that a portable shelter is one that collapses, folds or is disassembled for transportation.

“Wheeled fish houses, which formerly were considered portable – and thus excluded from licensing requirements for shelters – will now need to be licensed,” said Al Stevens, fisheries survey and systems consultant with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. “In the past, anglers using wheelhouses could use them without shelter licenses as long as they were occupied, including overnight.”

A shelter meeting the new definition of portable only needs a license when a person leaves it unattended, meaning they are farther than 200 feet from the shelter.

The change pursued by the DNR and enabled by 2017 legislation accompanied hunting and angling fee increases. An annual resident shelter license is $16. A three-year license is $43. Owners of houses to be rented pay $31 annually or $88 for a three-year license.

A valid license tag must be attached to the outside of the fish house in a readily visible location. On border waters, a shelter license is not required on the Minnesota side if the neighboring state doesn’t require a shelter license for its waters.   

To learn more about the fishing and hunting license dollars are spent, visit mndnr.gov/licensedollarsatwork. Shelter or fishing licenses can be purchased at DNR license agents across Minnesota, by phone at 888-665-4236 or online at mndnr.gov/buyalicense.

[Rebel SS]

If they would stop screwing with this horsh$$ and make one reasonable law, and leave IT ALONE...they have now changed it FIVE f***  TIMES since 1995. They've jacked the price way up, too. It's had so many people confused over the years, it isn't funny. No one can keep up with the changes.  I'm at the point I now have about zero respect for this Minnesota DNR bunch of clowns. I used to live, eat, and breathe ice fishing, and had my own column on a big ice fishing site. Now, I could care less if I ever go again.

[Boar]

their recouping some budget loss or something, pluse all the revenue from nailing those that dont have the shelter lisence  cause the wer unaware of the change

[glenn57]

i never did understand why they did away with the fee to start with. i always bought 2 shelter licenses anyway. 32 bucks is more then likely a whole lot cheaper then the fine for not having one.

[Jerkbiat]

I was under the impression the reason they did away with the shelter license for wheel houses was because they were going to require road licensing. Before that they were already licensed as an ice shelter and supposedly couldn't be double licensed. I know when wheel house were first being built they did not need to be licensed for the road. Back when I built mine in 2004 I did not need to license it for the road. Now they are going to be double licensed.