A fish house on Boot Lake is a rare sight. Our lake just does not see much winter fishing pressure. There have been a few more houses than normal this year, including this bright red one, but we typically only see one or two at a time plus an occasional portable. And we have “dark houses” too. A dark house is, just as the name implies, dark. Blocking out all the light helps a spear fisherman see his decoy (a wooden or live minnow) and also the northern pike that come to investigate. I would guess most of the ice angling on Boot Lake is for pike also. We have usually pulled our house off by now. The heavy snow cover pushes water up through any opening, flooding the lake with water which in turn, saturates the snow around the house and freezes it in. We have had to chip our house out (or use the chain saw) once or twice and it is a job we vow to never do again!