Sask. friends turn gutted plane into ice fishing shack

While ice fishing on any one of Saskatchewan’s 100,000 lakes is a popular winter pastime for many – one group of friends has truly taken their cold weather hobby to some new heights.

Lee Saretsky originally found the gutted plane for sale on Facebook Marketplace.

He and his friends immediately knew that the only way to repurpose the grounded aircraft was to turn it into a one of kind ice fishing shack.

Purchased in September of 2022 and after some elbow grease and teamwork, it is now proudly sitting on the ice.

Saretsky posted the creation to social media, where it understandably gained a lot of attention.

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“It’s been good. Usually with social media stuff there’s a few trolls out there but everybody’s comments are positive and everybody thinks it’s pretty cool,” he explained.

“Maybe people are getting sick of it but we’ve had a few visitors, maybe 10-15 people come by.”

It took Lee Saretsky and company more than a year to finish the plane/fishing shack. (Courtesy: Lee Saretsky)

After months of preparation, the “flight crew” is ready to catch some fish out at Last Mountain Lake.

“There’s been quite a few people wanting to poke their heads inside and take a look which is totally fine, and it's good depends what day it is,” Saretsky said.

“If we don’t want to see anyone, we’ll just take our other shack somewhere else and just watch people walk up to the plane kind of think, ‘We’re not sure yet,’” he laughed.

(Courtesy: Lee Saretsky)

Saretsky and his crew say they’re excited to catch some more fish in the plane until the end of March.

He did express some interest in bringing the creation to Regina Beach for the community’s annual ice fishing derby.

(Courtesy: Lee Saretsky)