Pickup Camper Fish House?

[Perchpapa]

Anyone turned a slide-in pickup camper into a house on wheels? I need some ideas.

[JRS]

My dad and I once built a camper/fish house combo that we could use in the back of a truck and as a fish house.

We also built a trailer when using it as a fish house as loading and unloading it was a bear.

The tough part would be building a frame for under the camper.

I purchased an old tow behind camper last year and I am in the process of having a frame with retractable wheels installed. The guy is doing it for around $500. When I get it back this weekend I'll snap some pics. If there's a way to weld it up, they could probably do it.

[beer batter]

I looked into one of these once and thought it would be too top heavy. Being that the base is very narrow and the top is much wider, I thought it would be too wobbly on the road when carrying it on a trailer. Also thought there would be too little space for the fishing holes - again due to the narrow base.

Didn't buy it due to those issues.

[Perchpapa]

Well, right now I don't have anything into this fish house yet. I guy gave me this camper for nothing. It has a good stove and furnace in it yet, and the furntiure is still good. What I want to do is build out the side so the thing is square since it is made out of 2x2 and plywood anyway, then I'd take out the sink and some cabinets, that would make more room for holes and just space in general. Then I'd put in a drop down trailer. You guys don't think I would be to heavy do you? I've seen some big shacks on Lake of the Woods.

[This message has been edited by Perchpapa (edited 11-19-2003).]

[beer batter]

I don't think that would be too heavy. Those pull behind camper conversion/fishhouses are much heavier than what yours will be.

Good luck with it.

[fishhook8]

I took on one of these projects 2 years ago. I bought a retractable wheel trailer. I gutted the entire inside, removed the part that fits in the box. I then built a lower frame the full width and length of the camper. It proved to be very time consuming. If I were to do this again I would remove all of the aluminum, windows, doors etc that could be reused and build the frame from scratch to fit on the trailer. There is enough aluminum on the camper to cover everything but a 5'high by 12' long piece on each side. Good Luck

[Perchpapa]

I've thought about doing it the way fishhook8 said and just tearing it apart completely and using the material to build one like tightlines just finished. I would probably have plenty of material. Thanks for all the info.

[straydog]

I use a pickup camper for a fish house, but I put it in the back of the truck to move it from lake to lake. Previous years I had no runners so I had to load it to move it around the lake, what a pain. This year there will be runners.

[silveroddo]

Stray, thats kinda what I was wondering about for moving it around. I've never really used a pickup camper but this year my friend got ahold of one from his dad so we're going to try it for a sleeper and going up to red or LOW. But 1st thing we'll do is get some runners on it.