Fish house that doesnt drop down to the ice

[rebel102285]

im thinking about picking up an oilfield office trailer that is 9x30 .. the house doesnt drop down to the ice... but the price is right for sure. Im guessing the house will sit 18-24" off of the ice and i wont have time to engineer it enough to drop down to the ice. anyone ever fish out of a setup like this? I'm worried how itll do it since it sits that far off the ice i would imagine it would be very difficult to land a fish being up that far.

[Rick G]

Many years ago I used to fish out of an old camper. It sat about 16-18in off the ice. I used 10in PVC to line my holes and had a heavy rubber skirt that went around the out side of the house. Even with all this I always had issues with my holes always freezing up.

Oh, and yes landing fish of any size can be tricky

[Down Deep]

There were some guys up at LOW who had an old hard side camping trailer. They were neighbors of our up there for a couple of seasons. They had 16X16 square holes cut in the floor. They had 3/4 plywood squares with 3 inch pieces of blue foam insulation attached to the outside. They slid the unit down the hole in the floor and had a tight fit. It stuck up about 2 or 3 inches above the floor. I accommodated a 10 inch hole. When they were done fishing for the trip, they would pull them out and put a plywood cover over the hole. Seemed like this system worked good for them.

[Ron Vroom]

For the past 3 seasons I have had an Airstream I converted to a fish house on LOW. I used 10" PVC tubes in the four 8" holes about 22" above the ice. I tried a couple different methods of skirting. Never was a problem landing a fish in the tubes, but when windy and severe negative temps. (-20-30) the holes would ice up, so I made the decision not to go up when those conditions were forecast because it seems the fishing isn't that great during those conditions. This year an entirely new system, I will remove the 2 wheels and lower to about 6" above the ice onto inner tubes around each hole which should make a good seal plus an 11" skirt around. I would say go for it for a season or so until you come up with a method to lower it.

[Sea Hage]

I've seen guys use a duct system with a computer fan and keep air from the ceiling blowing in the hole, seem to work for them