Ice fishing hut sugestions and help please

[Cheers]

I am planning on building my first shack this fall and would apreciate your input as I am not sure what works and what to avoid. The shack will be located far away from any roads on Rainy so I cant use a truck or trailer to transport it, I can either tow it with snowmobile or pre fab it and assemble on site. The size will be around 6 x 8 enough for 2 person max. How hard would it be to tow ?? Should the floor be insulated ? What about water on the floor being able to drain out ? What size runners and how many, I think 3 2x8s? with cross braces. If you have sugestions please let me know I was not able to find much in the way of plans on the web. THANKS MUCH

[riverrat56]

prefab might be the way to go, I know I have seen a house on here that could be bolted together on site in a matter of an hour.

For runners on an 6X8 you won't need 3 2X8's. 2 will cover it just fine, we only have 2 on out 7X10 and it works just fine no sagging at all.

I would insulate the floor, we didn't and should have.

It should tow easy on hard pack and very easy on bare ice, any kind of heavy snow and your in for some hard going though

[deepportage01]

I had a budy make one 8x8 so there was no cuting of the plywood and no wast if you go 6x8 you will have wast and why wast when you can have a little bigger shack? for almost free. his shack fit EZ on a sled trailer 6 sections with 4 bolts on each sectoins to hold it to gether once they set it up on the ice.this shack was very light and could be towed in all but the deepest snow. he would tow it out on 7 inches of ice and wait for late season to remove it [less snow]

[iced over]

I was thinking of going this route because I dont have the room to store a fishhouse in the off season. Did your buddy have a flat roof? How did it hold up to snow? How about the floor, did he do anything special?

Thanks

[deepportage01]

The floor was made out of 3/4 plywood[green] 2ft on cntr. the roof was just a flat roof with a ruber mat to keep the water out. all in all we think it went about 600 lbs+- this was a real basic shack one lantern was plenty for light and a wood stove did the heating, 6 holes 3 on each side and the wood burner in the center of the shack. there were some good time out there

[iffwalleyes]

I am assuming you aren't wanting to go with a portable? With some of the larger otters you get a hugh house that is very movable. Hook it up to the sled and pin the throttle man.

Canvas Craft in Anoka makes some neat house kits. The kits come with Canvas Shell, Hardware and Framework complete instructions. You will need to provide plywood for the floor and assembly. Plus they have some different types of insulation options and it is all collapable. They have kits up to 8'X8'. That might work for what you are looking to do it would be collasable and if you put some runners and some kind of decent hitch under the plywood floor it would probably ride along pretty darn nice.

But maybe you are looking for more of a hard sided house so this might not work for you.

[iced over]

I went with the 4X8 plywood floor with canvas a few years ago. They are not as portable as they make them out to be. Now that I have a kid I think it would be nice to have a permanant. I wouldn't have to worry about dragging everything out there just to fish for an hour. I got burnt out on that last year. My buddy has a nice portable and we use that when we go. Has anyone tried modifying and leaving their plywood/canvas on the ice as a permanant?