Continued: Minnesota's trendy anglers cut to the Chez Ice

Bob Sonenstahl is pretty sure he knows what fate awaits the thieves preying on Lake Minnetonka ice-fishing houses.

"What you're gonna end up with is four kids in the hospital and 40 people standing around with bruised knuckles, and nobody's seen nothing," said Sonenstahl, owner of Wayzata Bait & Tackle. "The fishermen will just take care of it; they won't even call the cops."

Last week's thefts from a dozen edifices near Excelsior are just the tip of the ice-house berg; break-ins are rampant in the land of 100,000-plus winter fishing structures. The combination of spiffed-up ice-fishing houses -- a flat-screen TV was among the items purloined early Wednesday on Lake Minnetonka -- and a sputtering economy are major motivating factors.

"Typically, we have problems up in this area every year," said Rich Robinson, owner of Mike's Bait on 8 in Forest Lake. "In the past, it's typically been kids screwing around, trying to get some new fishing gear. But with the economy being bad, I can see it being anybody."

Ice palaces used to be the sole province of the St. Paul Winter Carnival. Nowadays many of the fishing shelters on local lakes -- called "ice houses" by some, "fish houses" by others and "dumps where guys go to get outta the house" by more than a few -- cost more than a used car. Even the more humble part-time abodes often contain expensive toys, from surround-sound systems to Aqua-Vu underwater cameras and four-stroke augers.

These stocked mini-RVs are a far cry from the ice-fishing archetype: "Grumpy Old Men"-like folks perched on overturned buckets who look more than a little like they're using the lavatory.

"You'll see some of them with DirectTV, great stereos," said Robbie Pieper of Maple Grove, who was fishing inside and playing with his dogs outside his comfy ice house Friday at Carson's Bay on Lake Minnetonka. "A lot of guys come out to watch the game and put a couple of tips in the water, just trying to make it like home."

Many of Prior Lake's better-appointed ice houses are home, or at least second homes for recent retirees and construction workers who have the winter off, said Prior Lake Bait and Tackle manager Tom Pushcar.

"They'll spend long stretches out here, several days at a time. They have nice stoves, surround-sound TV and some of 'em have bathrooms. There's no plumbing, of course," said Pushcar, laughing. "I've been here three years, and I've definitely seen the ice houses getting nicer."

Neighborhood watch

With more than 300 houses on the north end of Prior Lake, many of them clustered in "suburbs," Pushcar said, there's less chance of crime because there's usually someone around. The Lake Minnetonka break-ins took place in a secluded area near Big Island in the wee hours Wednesday.

Among the victims were Minnetonka High School student Kevin Fink, who with three friends had built an ice house last fall -- and mounted a 14-inch Panasonic flat-screen TV on the wall. "We spent a lot of time and thousands of dollars doing this," said Fink Friday afternoon, as he was headed back to the ice. "They broke the window and just ripped the TV and a mounted radio out of the wall."

Fink said he was impressed that the Hennepin County Water Patrol sent out a crime-lab team and hopeful that the perpetrators would be caught. The sheriff's office has received a few tips and is increasing patrols on Lake Minnetonka, said spokeswoman Lisa Kiava.

The best hope might lie not with the constabulary but rather the fraternity of ice anglers who make our lakes such beehives of activity for several months every winter.

"Hey, it's winter in Minnesota, you gotta do something. That honey-do list, you can only do so much," said Kevin Kvam of Minnetonka, inside his toasty, modest ice house on Gideon's Bay, about a mile from the scene of the crimes. "Fishermen, they're all like one big family. They're gonna get [the thieves] and they're gonna want to know where the gear is. It's not gonna be pretty."

Still, we're far from the days, recalled by Wayzata Bait & Tackle' Sonenstahl, when the occasional ice-house owner "would mount a shotgun on a chair and run it through a pulley system, and if someone pushed that door, it would blow a hole in 'em."

Forest Lake's Robinson, though, might have the approach that best combines Midwestern practicality and Minnesota civility.

"If I caught somebody stealing my stuff, I wouldn't call the cops," said Robinson. "I'd take their shoes and socks and make them walk home."

Bill Ward • 612-673-7643