Houseboat Costs

[falkopat]

we have been houseboating it for 3 years, and 18 years before that all at frograpids camp in town.
We use lac suel floating lodges-bottom line great people.
We go with a group of 6 guys so our costs are alittle higher. Per guy with gas,food, license and bait about 1000-1100 a guy. If we had 8 the trip would be about 150 less a guy. We bring our own boats, we eat great food(only 3 fish fries), and we drink a fair amount. Awsome part is we call it a day early alot and go back and bobber fish off the back of the house boats so we can have a few legal cocktails. There are evening where we will easily catch 75-100 walleye in 2-3 hours off the back of the boat before dinner. fact of the mater is we love the houseboat trip and it is worth the extra cost. Key factors are going with a good group of guys who all think alike. We all get up around the same time, all enjoy staying up late playing card. We all know our jobs on the boat and it goes well, bring one or two lazy or angry guys and i wouldn't want to be on the houseboat all week with them. If someone wants the actual breakdown i can get you a spread sheet. My father is kind of anal about that stuff so he has everything down to food lists. just pm me

pat

[cuamb]

Been with SLFL since 98. I tell the guys to plan on $1000/person. Includes rental, HB gas, boat gas, gas for the trucks, pilot, license, bait and groceries. Only thing not covered is the beverages.

[Ranger319]

IM's sent to tsquared, icenut59, and falkopat

Thanks and keep opinions coming!

[tsquared]

We loved the trip, different than a fly in, but a solid fishing trip and one we are repeating this year. We used Sioux Lookout floating lodges as they had the VIP fishing boats which were awesome. We had 7 people on a 60 footer and rented four boats. A little cramped in terms of space for clothes, but as always we brought too much stuff. Our final # (which included gas to drive two vehicles from STL), 4 VIP fishing boats, licenses, conservation card and food was $1,300 plus alcohol. If you went with lower boats, drops your cost quite a bit - we like to try different parts of lake and "hunt" pike, so we used twice as much gas as most people.

[bassface44]

The group I fish with have been going with Houseboat Adventures out of Kenora for the last 3 years so I can not speak for or against either of the Lac Seul offerings. We have looked into them but it hasn't been in the cards to give them a try yet.

As for what things we plan for cost wise here is a short run down off the top of my head. Cost of the houseboat (how many days), cost of rental boats, is gas included, bait??, TAX, beer, liquor (border limits), ice, Fishing license, travel, exchange rate, hotel coming and going, mid week check (included? extra check?).

We have a few in our group that fly so we think about differences in cost for flying vs driving, flying to different cities and renting cars vs having a cab service take us to our destination. We try to think of every conceivable thing we could be charged for and plan accordingly and then have everyone bring around 200 cash for incidentals that truly can not be planned for.

I don't know how much your trip may end up being but even though I haven't been to Lac Seul I can assure you you will have an awesome time. The houseboat experience is really fun.

[fishnutbob]

Rainy Lake would be a good choice also. Ive been on one trip out of Kenora lots of fun.

http://www.rainylakehouseboats.com/fishing.html

[GeoHawk]

Add me to those that have rented from Floating Lodges in Sioux Narrows. My dad and I have been going most years since 1982 (when I was 11). Our most recent trip was in 2010 and it ran right around $6000 for the week for everyone. That's roughly how much it has been that last several years renting a 54-foot houseboat. That cost is for everything but gas for the drive up: Houseboat, food, fuel for both the houseboat and small boats, alcohol, bait, licenses etc. We fix fish about every other night to keep some of the food cost down, but other than that, we don't skimp on anything. We also bring our own small boats, so we don't rent any from Jim.

So just divide that cost by the number of people you have going (we usually have between 7-11 guys go). I did see that the houseboat rental went up $100 from two years ago (we have this year's trip scheduled for Memorial Day week).