Hanson's Auger Rack

[hanson]

After much talk, and a lot of scratching my head, I finally came up with an acceptable auger rack for my snowmobile.

The sled is a 2002 Arctic Cat ZR600 EFI. Hey, bass fisherman have big motors on shiny boats, why can't an ice fisherman.

Anyway, the foundation of the auger rack is an Arctic Cat cargo rack made for single seat ZR style chassis. I can get a part # but the rack is no longer available from AC. I happened to get mine off of HSOList after a lot of looking however there is probably a dealer somewhere that has this rack in their stock.

Installation of the rack is very easy, 8 pop rivets and 6 bolts. Piece of cake!

Now the part I've been scratching my head over was the auger carrier. I've looked at Ryan's ATV Racks and a few others and went with this auger carrier from Mad Dog simply because Gander was out of the Ryan's racks when I was there. I figured what the heck and tried it out. The only part that would work was the fin grip yoke that is on the right hand side of the photo. There are a couple other pieces with velcro straps that are designed to hold the handles of the auger but I couldn't get it to work right so I chucked them and freelanced my own part as seen in the photos.

After using the rack all last weekend, I'm going to redesign the plywood part that holds the powerhead. Even when the auger is strapped down, it has a tendency to move side to side a little. The new powerhead holder will be designed to not allow lateral movement of the auger. The ice season is nearing an end so this will be a nice little project on a Saturday this summer.

Here's the photos and feel free to ask questions.

[burl]

Chris,looks pretty good.After making some racks myself i found if you do not support the power head and the auger shaft the auger will take a beating.I found this out the hard way when the bushings started to get loose between the power head and the auger shaft on my auger.If you need some examples of what i did i could send you some pictures.My set up is on my atv but would work on a sled just as well.Burl.

[hanson]

Well...

I've been able to run this rack for the rest of the winter and it is the bomb! I reworked the plywood part supporting the powerhead almost immediately and that stopped the side to side movement. With one bungee cord, the auger is now strapped down rock solid on the rack.

My Marcum LX-3 fits in the rear rack as well and is held down with a couple more bungee cords. Now I have a couple of my most important pieces of equipment right on the sled with me, with easy access to them.

My longest trip so far with the auger carrier was 30 miles round trip out into the middle of Lake of the Woods and it worked just fine. I had to fight a snowfall on the way back in so visibility was shot and I was following my GPS track alone with no visibility at all in front of me. I managed to bounce pretty hard off of 3 breakers coming in and didn't lose any equipment.

[huntingislife]

That is a good idea with the wood. I am gonna have to rig something up to hold my power head stable. I have a gun rack mounted on my sled now but that was only a temporary auger rack. I need something better to support the auger. Thanks for the idea Hanson.

[hanson]

Hey Matt-

That last day on Upper Red for me was a brutal one. My dad & I snowmobiled over from Rogers Campground to Hillmans Rd and we failed to check the gas in his sled because of the rush we were in. We ended up near you on Hillmans and his sled was empty! What to do, what to do!

We started fishing and after the sundown flurry ended, I snowmobiled back to Rogers, jumped in my truck, and drove around to Hillman's Rd with the trailer all the way down that bumpy, sloppy 8 miles of road. Yuck! We loaded the sled up and headed off the ice pulling into Westwinds after midnight for a pizza.

Dad ended up with 3 crappies and Borch & his wife had another 7 or 8 about 30 yards from us. Pretty typical results for that spot.

[huntingislife]

Man that would suck. Hillmans road that day was terrible. I was dreading the drive back to shore. We ended up with 5 craps that night and lost a few at the hole. We also caught half a dozen big perch. We graphed lots of crappies before we figured out what they wanted. We went back to the same spot the next day with high hopes and didn't even graph a crappie the whole day. On monday we fished about 5 miles out and managed 4 more that day. Surprisingly they all came from 1-3 in the afternoon. At dark the walleyes went crazy. As soon as you could drop your jig back down they would come 3-5 feet off the bottom to inhale it. It was fun but I would have rather caught crappies. We are going back up this weekend to give it one last shot. Then its time for the boat. I might have to try some of that catfishin'. I have never done it before but it looks like a blast.

[Borch]

It sure was rough that night. Especially at the big turn at 5 miles. Definitely a test for your auger rack as well as anything else that drove over it.