My First Sled Modification: MORE NEW PIX! 10/25

[McGurk]

This is the 1st stage of my first attempt at a Portable Fish House Modification. I purchased an Otter Pro Cabin this year with the full intention of modifying it for hardcore fishing and ease of use. A big Thank You to all of the previous posters, namely Paul Waldowski and Chris Hanson (but there are others), that I have shamefully stolen ideas from, and gladly allow anyone to steal mine. I also welcome any constructive criticisms and other thoughts that may come to your mind on this. I hope to have this done in a couple of weeks to get out sooner than later.

This pic show the basic layout that I have chosen. The material is all 2x2 redwood that I had ripped down from 2x4 or 2x6 stock.

This shows where I plan to put all of the components. There is a rod carrier that is sitting by the red soft tackle box that is accessed from the front of the sled, and everything else is pretty self explanatory. The auger and flasher will be kept on the wheeler as they are the first things that are used (thanks for that hanson!).

Basic contruction of the frame, all glued and screwed. The 2 legs sit in the center trough of the runners.

The hardest piece to finesse. I guessed on the 45 degree angle, and it works well enough. Make sure to trim the edges closest to the sides of the sled for a snug fit.

As I said, please feel free to comment on any part of this, and I will be adding more pics including a different auger mount design on a wheeler/sled rack.

[fishinJohn]

Nice to see some fresh mod pics. The more details you give the more help it will be.

[ilovehardwater]

Very nice McGurk, Im jealous, I live in a 1 bedroom apt. with my girlfriend and I have no garage to work on my portable so here it has been sitting in our livingroom for the last month+ I dont think a living room full of sawdust and wood scraps would make for a happy girlfriend. lol I did install reflectix,hong kong led's,computer fan, and metal runners that retract off the ice, if they work well I'll take pics and post. Maybe nextyear I'll get a biggger place and get the inside of the sled to look like the inside of a boat, seats and all. Thanks for the pics. BT

[McGurk]

Thanks for the comments, guys. I have a guy giving me a couple of boat seats on swivels that will go on soon. I have the panels cut and a few of them attached. Looking to get carpet and hinges next, and mount an eye bolt for tandem towing.

I did a little grinding on the Otter towbar to get a round front edge as location of the tow point is too close to the 2" Ball mounted. There was no loss of strength, just removal of the corners, and then a few coats of flat black paint.

I am also going to put on a layer of reflectix type material as soon as I get it. As more gets completed I'll get a couple of fresh pix up.

[McGurk]

Had some time to get more done on it this week. Pretty happy so far with the results.

Location of some vertical dividers for the compartments:

Covers and layout, all 1/2" plywood:

Carpeted covers from the front, used hallway carpet you can get in strips cut to length, needed about 9'x2':

Hatches open from front, used self-closing cabinet hinges:

From back corner closed:

From back corner open:

Rounded hitch for Otter Sled Towbar, they are normally squared corners:

[Shack]

Looking Good!

Can not wait for ice!

[Scott M]

Looks great McGurk. You left room for some sliding type frame to hold your two seats, right? Just checking. I can't wait to get my otter and do some mods. Gotta start a new job and buy a truck first. and maybe get a lab. Geez, maybe I will be waiting longer than I thought

Seriously, I will probably mess up my mods 5 times before I get it right, making my modifications way more expensive than what I'll tell my wife about

[Paul Waldowski]

Looking Good McGurk!!!!

[Dan Thiem]

Sweet McGurk! Let me know when your ready to give it the maiden voyage!

[Eric Wettschreck]

Quote:

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Let me know when your ready to give it the maiden voyage!

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Smells like the begining of an early ice get together?????

[McGurk]

Where and when? We need to start getting some FM Get-together dates and locations down sometime!!!

[Dan Thiem]

How about a Lake IWTBT get together? Boiler, Nytlyter, McGurk, Bobby? Ya think?

[nytelyter]

sure thing dan we will meet at the lodge tip some anti freeze and have a go at it ... paul

[McGurk]

You bringin' the chili, Nyte-y? I be happy to do a little samplin'. We just may have to be a Lake IWTBT tourney this winter, with the Lodge's permission, of course. Any part of the lake sound good to anyone? Remember, I am a newbie on this particular body of water, being a weekender and all!

[Thunder]

Any idea how much weight these mods have added? Just curious as I'm looking to get into a fish trap or otter style house and would probably do some mods on it.

[nytelyter]

Quote:

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Any part of the lake sound good to anyone? Remember, I am a newbie on this particular body of water, being a weekender and all!

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hehehe the part that is over fish. heheheheh ... paul

[dairyman]

Reminds me of what an old guy told me when I asked him where his house was-----well I've got 2 square feet --you can have the rest of the lake(He had speared a monster of a northern--had to be at least 4 feet)--so I drove around the lake until I found it----he had it back in a cove. He passed away some years ago. Nice fellow !!

[McGurk]

Thunder, I'd say that the weight of the wood, hardware, and carpet would be less than a 15 lbs, but that's just a guess. I am planning on putting a couple of boat style seats on swivels, too, and I've got a feeling that each seat will weigh as much as the total mod. Still, with the hyfax I'm hoping that pulling won't be bad.

I rigged up a pulling harness last year from seatbelt style strapping that allows you to pull from the small of your back and frees up your arms and hands. I'd say that that would be a more important mod for someone pulling by hand than anything else you could do. I started with an extra freebie treestand fall arrest harness, cut off the leg parts and anything else that wasn't used, and attached a rope to the center of the back. MUCH MUCH easier pulling.

[munchy71]

Quote:

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Thunder, I'd say less than the weight of the wood, hardware, and carpet would be less than a 15 lbs, but that's just a guess. I am planning on putting a couple of boat style seats on swivels, too, and I've got a feeling that each seat will weigh as much as the total mod. Still, with the hyfax I'm hoping that pulling won't be bad.

I rigged up a pulling harness last year from seatbelt style strapping that allows you to pull from the small of your back and frees up your arms and hands. I'd say that that would be a more important mod for someone pulling by hand than anything else you could do. I started with an extra freebie treestand fall arrest harness, cut off the leg parts and anything else that wasn't used, and attached a rope to the center of the back. MUCH MUCH easier pulling.

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A deer drag harness works well, too....

-Munchy

[McGurk]

I do see why the square poles are getting mixed reviews, as I ran steel wool on them and waxed them, without much benefit. They are binding, twisting, catching, grinding burrs on the inner poles, and just giving me overall frustration. Any other miracle fixes?

There are a couple of other things that I wish Otter would address on their Pro Houses. The 4 bolts that the poles attach to the brackets with are about 1/4" too short as the nylon on the locknuts doesn't grab without crimping the poles, and if you don't tighten them enough for the nylon to grab they just spin off. Not what I'm looking forward to on the ice. My answer to that was to reverse the nuts, by putting the nylon side on first and threading far enough to make sure that the threads are grabbing without crimping the poles. Here's to hoping that it works, I may pack a few extras anyway.

The velcro tabs that attach the canvas to the poles cover the snap button locations on 2 of the poles, and I don't really have an answer for that. It may not be a problem, though. Also, a couple of the tabs had the velcro reversed so that I had to flip 1 tab around to get the two sides of the velcro to meet and grab. Shouldn't be a problem, but a little frustrating none the less.

All in all the house went together pretty easily, with the templates fitting well for drilling the holes for the brackets. It is a little clumsy to do by your self, but not impossible. I caught myself sitting in the garage in the setup house up a bit tonight, reading the '08 Infisherman Ice mag. With all of the talk here, it's the only thing keeping me sane. Thanks to all responding.

[hanson]

McGurk-

I haven't commented on your mods yet but its looking good! Like I said in the seminar, no matter what you do now, you'll use the house for a few weeks and come up with a bunch of ways to make it better.

I use my shack out of the back of my truck, and towed behind my snowmobile. I could come up with different mods for each situation but I've tried to find a balance point between the two.

In regards to your comments about your Otter house problems, those aren't isolated problems but should be fixable.

With the square tubing, I would suggest to continually work the poles that are sticking or binding on you. It might work itself out. If not, one of the ones thats binding may be slightly bent, or you have scored one of them bad enough to cause a problem. If you can't get it to work right, shoot Otter an e-mail or phone call and get hooked up with a couple new poles and see if that remedies the problem.

In regards to those nuts, tighten them down so thread comes through the nylon side. You can really crank them nuts down without affecting the flip-flopping of the house. Crank them down but try no to crease/dent the poles.

[redtrucks]

Before I put my Otter together I took a file to all of the square tube ends to make sure that there where no small burrs left over.I tried using a teflon based spray for the tubes when I first put my sled together but that made the tubes bind, so I ended up taking everything apart to clean off the teflon spray on the tubes. Gander Mountian (Fargo)had a product that came in a small tube that helped the tubes slide even when the temps were sub zero. I also used this product on the zipper to keep it from freezing. I did not have a problem with the tubes binding after I applied this product. I will try and find the name of this product. You can purchase a lock nut that is half as thick as the one that came with the poles. That will take care of the tube pinching problem.

[Farley]

Sucks you have to fix a problem you shouldnt have to deal with but I'd just go to your local hardware store and buy longer bolts if it's a problem.

Also steel wool probably wont do the best job for deburring, a file would be best.

[Pikeslayer]

Thats what I did with mine,longer bolts, works good!Now about them square tubes?

[McGurk]

I don't think the longer bolts idea will work with the Pro houses, as the bracket is now one-sided, with pressed-in bolts hanging out. The older (and I think better) style had two-sided brackets with bolts going clear through. I'm going to stick with the reverse threaded nuts for now, as they are almost flush with the end of the bolt and don't seem to be crimping or twisting off.

More Pix! Worked on a rack for the auger and flasher, and came to a decent result, I think. The basic design just has one handle resting on the bottom and the auger shaft resting on the top of a lidded box that holds the flasher. The long sides hold the head snug and might keep a little spray off the head, too. All made of 1/2" plywood scraps.

This shows the mechanism that locks the auger down during transport. Basically a hinge and bolt bridging a couple of runners the height of the shaft. I wish I had a larger wingnut as I don't see this staying around when wearing gloves.

This shows the compartment for a flasher or whatever. Needs a hasp to keep it closed yet.

And a shot of the house up and mods bolted in! Ready to go!