Wheel House Consumer Reports Please

[bassNspear]

I am researching Fish houses, but i am not sure which way to go. I am not sure on size yet, thinking at least 14-17 but not sure.

Would like to hear as much imput as possible on a fish houses. Im not sure where on the budget either, just want feed back

Thanks all

BNS

[toughguy]

If you can wait that long head to the St. Paul icefishing show. Lots of manufacturers there. It's nice to see them all side by side.

[bassNspear]

when is it again??

[Iambjm]

Dec 2-4 2011

St. Paul RiverCentre

175 Kellogg Boulevard West

St. Paul, MN 55102

Show Hours

Friday: 1pm – 9pm

Saturday: 10am – 7pm

Sunday: 10am – 5pm

[bassNspear]

any one have any imput as far as King crow, ice castle, lodge ect

thanks

[Iambjm]

I have a friend who has a shack from Carsella's and he raves about it. I just bought a Yetti, which is unfinished on the inside. I looked at a Ridgeline (a really small one) I was not impressed. Another friend of mine just sold his Ice Castle and he seemed to like it. I looked at the Lodges last year at the ice show, very nice but spendy.

[MJ1657]

I ordered a Performance Engineering house because he would custom build the frame for the size spear hole I wanted. I narrowed my search down to a couple people and he was the only one that would make me a 30" wide spear hole. It will end up being 30"x36". House is an 8'x16' with a v.

[bassNspear]

how much did the charge mj

im thinking i dont want to have a spear hole in this house, being i have my canvas craft

[bassNspear]

anyne ever look into financing on these houses. I think im in the range of 10k or less

[MJ1657]

Its a shell house. I am going to insulate, wire, and finish the inside myself. The shell is a little over 6k. There is no real set price because he custom builds houses how you want it.I will probably end up with about 10k into the house. It will be all cedar and i'm doing everything how I want it with a "floating" budget which means i'll be broke when its done.

[muc33]

Bass my houses come from Carsella and Don does a great job at a fraction of the cost of many of the others. Quality meets my standards as well. There are many out there as listed above that build quality houses. It really depends on what you want. If you want more specifics feel free to PM me. I am getting a new bigger Carsella this year and selling my current house. I like Don and his work. So that is what I can tell you in generic form.

[iffwalleyes]

I have a Lodge and love it. I personally think they are the best but and ice castle, performance engineering, yetti are all good. One thing I know about a lodge is that is is able to be titled and is considered an RV it has NADA available too so financing is a option. Not sure if there others are able to do that. I know it is one of their points of advertising.

They are very warm spent 3 nights in it at LOW last yerar when it was near -20 below and we stayed nice and comfortable inside all night long. You put your hand to the wall and felt no coolness what so ever.

[bassNspear]

seems like you are able to finance ice castle and lodge if it was i was going to buy new???

[iffwalleyes]

I would still think with a used Lodge you can get financing though the bank cause it has a NADA value to it. I used mine as collateral on my home ReFi and my banks said it was easy to use the lodge cause she was able to look the value up on NADA. it is n different that going in and getting finanacing on a used camper. That is one think to remember if you state it as a camper it might make financing easier that if it is just a fish house. Because then you have an actual title in hand.

[MJ1657]

seems like you are able to finance ice castle and lodge if it was i was going to buy new???

I was in Milaca saturday, they had Ice Castles and they have financing right there.

[B-man715]

Take a look at Shack Rack frames and houses. The frame on my house is from them and I absolutely love it!

Whatever you get make sure it has a tube frame and if you splurge on hydraulics it will be something you will likely never regret.

I have fished 10 different spots and multiple lakes in one day. That is something I would never do in a crank house.

[Iambjm]

I made a list of what I wanted and didn't want and what my budget was. I decided on the Yetti for 2 reasons

1. It is lighter and being unfinished I can put as much or as little as I want.

2. Price - I managed to get a hail damaged unit at a really good cost.

Now my biggest hurdle is getting it done in time for ice. I have my tongue and groove, and I am waiting for a friend to connect to do the electrical. If I could have done that myself I would be half done by now. I looked at all of them last year at the ice show and if I could have afforded it Lodge would have been my choice.

[iffwalleyes]

I had never looked at ice castles too much. But I browsed my way over there tonight your kidding me I found my new dream fish house a 8X28 5th wheel. That is totally awesome when a new 5th wheel camper is finding it's way to our house hold I think I might have a plan.

[MJ1657]

I made a list of what I wanted and didn't want and what my budget was. I decided on the Yetti for 2 reasons

1. It is lighter and being unfinished I can put as much or as little as I want.

2. Price - I managed to get a hail damaged unit at a really good cost.

Now my biggest hurdle is getting it done in time for ice. I have my tongue and groove, and I am waiting for a friend to connect to do the electrical. If I could have done that myself I would be half done by now. I looked at all of them last year at the ice show and if I could have afforded it Lodge would have been my choice.

I think they look like great houses and i'm sure yours will turn out great. The problem I had with them was the link here goes nowhere and the only answer I could get on their 8 foot wide houses was to go look at them at the sportsmans show.

My experience was they need to work on a little customer service.

[Iambjm]

Please note that the link here is not Yetti directly, but one of their dealers who has said that they are working on their HSOforum.

[bassNspear]

so i guess by readying these posts, the more i read, it looks like Lodge and Ice Castle are the top two. Along with a few others.

Anyone else have anything?

[walleye-]

I have a 6 1/2 x 12 king crow that I bought 16 years ago and still use it now not many problems with it besides haveing to repanel and take out their fiberglass and replace with foam insulation and one broken spring overall great house. This year I spent many hours lookin and comapring houses just about bought the ice castle Mille lacs but couldnt get over the poor interior quality and the weight overall plus I couldnt lift the hitch way to much tounge weight for me. So I ended up with the 8x16 Yetti and am currently working on finishing it. Never considered a lodge cause they are a bit spendy

[bassNspear]

why didnt you go to a new king crow??

[walleye-]

They don't make a 8' wide house and also wanted the aluminum frame.

[bassNspear]

great point. I was thinking the same thing.