Ice Fishing House Photos

[bogwalker]

My boys and I are looking at building or buying an ice fishing house. Photos and ideas would be appreciated. We are leaning towards a permanent for the extra space.

[Caleb S]

You might want to provide some additional paramaters, ie: amount of $ available, approx size you are thinking of, what you have to haul it with...

[bogwalker]

If I buy one it would probably be a flip open style with a sled. A permanent probably 8'x8' home made by someone or we might build one.

[meatfish]

bogwalker.I am heading up to sand lake on wed.morn to pick up my son and daughters house.and will most likely stay a couple of days as the ice is ok up there now.If you would like to come look at it and steal the design it is a nice little house.But I would change the design slightly if I were to build it again.It is about 4 miles from the crow bar.

email is mhcarpntry at yahoo dot com

[bogwalker]

Thanks meatfish. It looks like I might be traveling this week. If you have any photos I would like to see them.

[hovermn]

I threw together a quick web page with some pics of mine...

Fish House

[Dr. Dan]

Great ice fishing house!

[bogwalker]

Great house! Do you have any trouble getting on and off lakes with the length of your house?

[lovetheice]

nice winter pad, I bet you look forward to ice every year with that baby.

[hovermn]

I bet you look forward to ice every year with that baby.

That is the understatement of the year!! I live for ice fishing, and look forward to spending my winter weekends sleeping out on the ice, not to mention being able to spend time with friends doing what we love!

The house is 6.5 X 17 and weighs around 2500 lbs. There's really no issue entering and exiting the lake, and I'm yet to bottom out the back on even the stepest landing. The tongue scraped once, but that was because my hitch on the truck was too low.

I came pretty close to putting it on the market this fall, but decided that I'd rather starve this winter than be without the house

[7outof10]

i really like your house

[jesse larson]

do you have any better pics of the axle set up and where the springs mount? they look a little different that what I have seen before

Jesse

[Christopher Quast]

YEP I'm jealous

[CrappieFshr651]

Yeah that shack looks pretty compfortable.

[snoozebutton]

I came pretty close to putting it on the market this fall, but decided that I'd rather starve this winter than be without the house

Nice house and you shouldn't have to worry about starving, just buy potatoes (and maybe a few greens once in a while to prevent scurvy) along with your fish.

[hovermn]

do you have any better pics of the axle set up and where the springs mount? they look a little different that what I have seen before

Jesse

Sorry, I don't have any other pics of the wheels than those. My camera died and have no way of taking new ones.

Thanks for the great complements guys. It was built in temps as low as -5, so I guess you could call it a labor of love I take pride in my work, and enjoy sharing it with others.

With that said, if you see the house out there behind a Green F150, stop in and say hi, pull up a hole However, if you see it behind something else, CALL THE COPS! hehe

[bogwalker]

Do you have a generator for electricity?

[TonkaBass]

nice house hovermn!

[hovermn]

No Generator. The house is powered by two 190 amp/hr deep cycles. These guys are huge, and were designed to power floor scrubbers. I found them after building the interior. If it were the other way around, things would have been much different, especially the wiring. At 119 lbs ea. I couldn't just throw them in the front where I had planned, and where all of the wires are run to. Instead, they're under the dinette, right over the wheels.

Hooked up to those is an Iota 30 amp Converter/4 stage charger and a small inverter for the TV. I'd like a larger inverter to run a microwave (hey, I have the extra juice :-) and some other things, but that'll have to wait.

the guy I bought the batteries from said that he put 2 of them in his fish house and ran it with a force air furnace, microwave, flat screen lights and radio for 4 days without running out of juice. Shawnny B and I ran the radio, TV and lights for 5 days while camping without any issue last fall.

[Shawnny B]

not to mention we have to insulate the spearks some how ...=-)

Lets just say Good Luck Chuck was heard all over Burnstide last year...

[hovermn]

Now that's some funny stuff right there! Went out to get something out of the truck with the movie playing, looked around and thanked god that we were around summer homes! That was LOUD! Hooked the TV into the house stereo, and there's very little sound insulation between the speakers and exterior. Yeah, not good!

[bogwalker]

You know your stuff!

[hovermn]

2 things I will never do again. First, let me say that I'm what bikers call a weight weenie (not sure if I can say that here). That said, I would never do the following things again:

1. 1/2" plywood floor. Yeah, I can here you guys now. "You did WHAT?" Yup, I went with 1/2". It works fine, just gives a little. I don't mind it, but feel self conscious anytime someone new walks in. To remedy this, I plan on welding a couple 2X2X1/8" angle supports between the frame members to stiffen it up.

2. Foam trim. It looks just like pine, but is lighter weight, and will not rot. Problem is, there's no fiber to hold it together, so it's cracked in several places, and a couple chunks cracked right off. Stick with real wood. I could have glued it, but if I need to get behind one of the panels sometime, it'd be a !@#$ to remove!

[minnbowhunter]

hovermn, very nice house, I agree with you about the foam trim, easy to work with but not very durable. Where did you get your axle assemblies?

[hovermn]

Built them. I made the trailer and house. Much less expensive that way. If you've priced 17' V nose drop down trailers before, you understand how much a person can save by DIY.

Not to mention that I enjoy welding....when the welder's working that is... I would like to say that I can't take credit for the trailer design. I borrowed the design from Sportsmans fish houses. They used to sponser the Ice Fishing forum. I like the idea of winching the wheels until they stop, then sliding in the pin, instead of trying to line up the spring eye with the pivoting spring holder.