CORE-ICE House

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

34 minutes ago, DougSD said:

The wife and I have looked at many fish houses over the years.  After seeing the Core-Ice she said that is the type of house we need.  Can someone tell me if I am off on this or not as we do not have any experience with the small aluminum skid houses, being a skid house once on the lake, it would be really easy to move spots behind the 4 wheeler correct?  Basically reel up your line, put the hole cover on, fire up the wheeler and off to next spot.  We thought we liked the idea of the ridgeline wheel houses but after hearing that some are having problems hauling their 4 wheeler inside, eliminates that house.  As another option to the Core-Ice would be to just get a skid house, and a trailer to haul both the skid and 4 wheeler and have a little extra load and unload work and time.  Would there be a time when you would not like to have a skid house when moving around on the lake?

 

A skid house is great, unless you have a bunch of snow, or move from lake to lake a bunch.  There is a good recent post on here with a skid house with skis behind a snowmobile.  

[DougSD]

Seems like we haven't had to deal with snow much.  When it does snow--the wind blows it off the ice.

[Hawg]

I'm not sure if I would spend that kind of money and bet on no snow. Skid houses are tough to bank too which no one is talking about. Look at the front and you'll see it's a couple inches of the ice when on skids, that's a lot of banking when snow is scarce. I also think that house is way too low to the ice when on skids, it will not pull through any amount of snow. Skids have to be high or they plow. Sometimes people get defensive when others try to give them advice but to me pride comes before $20,000. I agree it looks nice and easy to take care of but comfort sure seems lacking and the width is too small for me. You would be hard pressed to find anyone that's had an 8 wide that wants to go back to 6 1/2 unless it's to downsize a lot. JMHO

[lungdeflator]

Doug, I just bought an 8x12' Aluma Lite skid house this winter.  I have had it out 2 times now.  I bought a 22ft v front snowmobile trailer to trailer it around.  I have room for the house on the front and 2 wheelers or snowmobiles on the back.  

I can pull the house around with an ATV pretty easily.  Chains are almost essential with just tires on the ATV.  I also bought some tracks for the ATV, but have not tested them out yet.  Remember is it aluminum so it does bend easily.  

 

The biggest challenge for me so far has been figuring out a good system to load it.  Right now I have 2x10" ramps and a hand winch mounted to a post on the trailer tongue.  The HDPE doesn't pull easily on bare dry wood of the ramps and trailer deck.  And the house is heavy enough pulling up the ramps that it bent the winch post and almost broke the weld on the post.  I think I am pretty close to figuring out a good system though.  The smaller sized houses or even the bigger ones if you want to put your ATV in the pickup box, load pretty easily on a tilt bed snowmobile trailer with a tongue winch.  

 

I am going to make a new winch post with a support on it to keep it from bending.  Also going to put snowmobile "ski guides" on the ramps and trailer to help the skis move better when loading and unloading.  

 

PM me if you want more details 

[DougSD]

1 hour ago, Hawg said:

I'm not sure if I would spend that kind of money and bet on no snow. Skid houses are tough to bank too which no one is talking about. Look at the front and you'll see it's a couple inches of the ice when on skids, that's a lot of banking when snow is scarce. I also think that house is way too low to the ice when on skids, it will not pull through any amount of snow. Skids have to be high or they plow. Sometimes people get defensive when others try to give them advice but to me pride comes before $20,000. I agree it looks nice and easy to take care of but comfort sure seems lacking and the width is too small for me. You would be hard pressed to find anyone that's had an 8 wide that wants to go back to 6 1/2 unless it's to downsize a lot. JMHO

Good points.  When it comes down to it, I have a hard time justifying spending that kind of money on something I hope we are able to use 3 months out of a year.

[Hawg]

I would have been happy to get one good month these last two years. Welcome to the gang Doug.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

Come on guys!  Just gotta go where the ice is!  Heading up to LOTW tomorrow for 5 days.  Still 30" up there.  

[Adam NWI]

11 hours ago, Lip_Ripper Guy said:

Come on guys!  Just gotta go where the ice is!  Heading up to LOTW tomorrow for 5 days.  Still 30" up there.  

What kind of job do you have that you get that much vacation time?!  Every other weekend it seems like you're taking another 5 day trip!

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

39 minutes ago, Adam NWI said:

What kind of job do you have that you get that much vacation time?!  Every other weekend it seems like you're taking another 5 day trip!

 

I'm a Realtor, so I get to "make my own schedule".  December/January tends to be a slow time, so ice fishing is the perfect hobby.  February/March is sketchy, but I can pull it off with the combination of good people back in the office, and a wifi hot spot and laptop in the fish house.

 

We ended up holding off for a day with this wind, and I think LOTW walleye trip is going to turn in to Winnie perch trip instead.  My guess is that with the bi-polar weather we've had over the last few days, I won't need very many minnows...         

[DougSD]

1 hour ago, Lip_Ripper Guy said:

My guess is that with the bi-polar weather we've had over the last few days, I won't need very many minnows...         

 

Still better than working!

[Hawg]

You have to be a part timer to build houses like that! LRG, you did right by waiting, the Hwy 371 from just north of town up to just shy of Nisswa was closed this morning for blowing wind. We only got 1/4-1/2 inch of snow but we had white out road conditions. This is the first time in my whole life I remember that happening. (I do drink more now so I may have forgotten though)

Edited March 8, 2017 by Hawg

[slammer]

On 3/7/2017 at 0:04 PM, DougSD said:

Good points.  When it comes down to it, I have a hard time justifying spending that kind of money on something I hope we are able to use 3 months out of a year.

What about those guys with the $70-80k boats that get used maybe 10-20 times a season?

 

I said in an earlier post I would not pay their prices but after I actually sat in one it changed my thinking.  We'll see what they come up with by next fall.