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I'm thinking everything's on ice isn't it?

Mark it with a hand held gps so you know where that fish crib is in May.

On year two, we put it up on concrete blocks. The house came off nice and easy, the blocks...not so much. But that was the plan.

now it is starting to sound like a good time!!

but i'm still slaving away on my own house, race against the clock to be ready to pull out on Thursday morning.

Maybe I'll take some pictures tonight, shop is filthy, embarassingly filthy, so you'll have to pretend not to notice.

Dude...it's a shop.

I plan on blocking mine up every time before I leave it.

Oh by the way the Sherpular one struck again, he darn neared did himself in.

Ya see Sherpa lives in this one room cabin (shack) with a wood burner. Outhouse privy and a water hose from outside for water are the amenities.

In any event Sherpa was pleased to get himself a new drum wood burner last summer. Now this addition was a vast improvement as he could pile the woods close down the dampers and cook just right all night long.

Well only problem is Sherpa seemed to have forgot to check on the chimney aka exhaust pipe. Well the creosote buildup blocked off the fumes and he just about gassed himself.

Thankfully he got er dun and took care of business and will continue on with the tales to written.

By the way boys he was saying the ponds and rivers are freakishly thin this year so be extra careful. Also that he is not finding minnows as much as predicted and to watch your prices. Not sure why I would worry as to how much minnows but he mentioned it so i am passing it along.

yeah, sniner shortage for sure.

if there are any shiners in the bait shops up here they will sell out early.

glad the sherpa pulled through.

The shiners we used died quickly. Never had that happen before. Not in the winter anyway. They are usually pretty tough.

Shiners....whole big tank full of 'em at my local bait shop. Spendy too. And they live just long enough to get to the lake access before they go belly up.

As far as the house goes. Yep block them babies up. With all the snow we have, the lakes will flood making it very miserable if it freezes in. I know of guys that have just lit a match to the house because they couldn't budge it. Highly illegal now days but its been done.

I'm sure you guys have heard about the guys wanting to break up the ice in one end of the lake.Decided to use dynamite.Loaded up the brand new 4WD suburban and drove out on the lake all the way to the upper end.Just for giggles they took one guys lab with them.That's where it all went wrong.They got out of the suburban and the dog got out also.They lit the fuses on the dynamite and hurled it as far as they could.Yep,you guessed it.The lab took off after the dynamite and in a moment had retrieved the still fuse burning stick and was proundly headed back to his master.
Despite angry cries from his master he kept on coming until,in desperation,one of the men grabbed a pistol from his pocket and shot the dog.His aim wasn't good and he only succeded in wounding the poor animal who took refuge under the suburban with the dynamite stick still fizzing in his mouth.You can guess what happened next.It was an unfortunate end to the dog.The ice parted under the brand new Suburban and it slid beneath the water.The two guys were trapped on a large ice floe until the next day when they were seen and rescued.Both suffered hypothermia and frostbite each losing a few toes.This had to be true cause no one could make up such a scenario.
Motto:When you take the fish house out...leave the damned dog home.

Stan

Heck burning em down wouldnt do no good around here anymore, towards end of the season CO's have been known to map houses out with GPS.

Something happens and folks get a knock on the door.

Would this guy who's gonna try and whoop my arse be an Avery Yuppy? Telling you guys right now if this is Chris from the Rockies that I know he is one guy that has taken more kids hunting then alot of guys ever will... Good to see you too, send me a number via p.m. and we'll chat one night this week if ya want.

that's a good story stan but up north here the version we know tells the intent of the 2 men being to open some water for some late ducks/geese. The dog was along cause, well it was his job to retrieve if all went as planned.

I think it's total bull, cause I don't remember doing it & I'm the only one I know that's crazy enough to try that & with poor enough luck for it to end that badly.



Here are some pictures of the new ice fishing house.

size is 8' x 16' with 8' walls. Floor is insulated, plywood bottom, 1 1/2" foam, plywood top.

Walls framed with 2x2 24" on center. sheeted on interior with 1/4" plywood, exterior sprayed with expanding 2 component urethane foam. Windows are simple "barn sash" single pane non operating, there are 2 wall vents for regulating heat & allowing fresh air. Door is a used insulated steel exterior with a large window.

Floor has 6 fishing doors. doors are 14" by 36" finished size which alows for 2 drilled fishing holes per fishing door opening in floor.

in MN we can fish 2 lines per person during winter fishing. That's how we do it.

So, this house will fish 6 people, 2 lines each. But most of the time it wont fish more than 5 of us at once.

I still have some work to do but here it is










for you northern folk that know to ask, heat will be provided by a 20,000 btu LP wall mounted vent free heater, blue flame type with thermostat control.

It will only run high flame for initial warm up, then it will be switching itself from pilot to low flame as it needs.

who wants to go fishin?

The boy is coming up to help put the house out Thursday morning (new years day) his job Wed night will be to keep me relatively sober so I am as fuctional & sharp as I get come house locating day. If all goes as planned the new year will be greeted relatively sober & sensibly

Nice doghouse fish house Dave! Tell me a little more about the spray on foam if you don't mind. I would like to spray the underside of my cargo/atv hauling camp trailer to insulate it! Had a commercial guy lined up to do it but he never showed.

well that's the thing, you gotta find someone that has the equipment. It is a high pressure system that pumps the 2 liquid components together in equal volumes through individual heated lines. the product is introduced at the end of the lines at the spray gun where it reacts as it hits the spray target, it starts expanding immediately. it's ugly as hell and not typically used as an exterior product. i plan to simply paint this to protect it from the sun & seal it up a little tighter. Down the road I may shave the exterior to the studs & sheet the exterior with a light weight exterior sheeting of some type. but for now, ugly on outside, nice on inside.

light weight & well insulated is the goal with this house & this was a good way to go about it.

Many of the rental/resort houses up here on Lake of the Woods MN are built this way. Very easy to heat, it's like a big styrofoam cooler.

The process can be expensive (spray foam) but I am lucky enough to have the equipment & the people that use the equipment at work where I basically get the product for cost.

This house will eventually be converted to a "sleeper" house. which means just what you think it would. means we can get drunk & just stay out on the lake fishing all night.....

I mean, it means we can sleep out there if we don't feel like going home when it gets dark.



I'll ad a couple bunks eventually, that's when ice fishing really gets fun, when you don't have to worry about going home when it gets dark.

The guy I had lined up was a commercial applicator. They were doing buildings down here in town last summer. He was actually out of Montana. I think they just wanted to get home for the weekend and left us hanging. A buddy and I were wanting the underside of our cargo trailers sprayed for insulation. The floors get cold in the winter! I saw a couple of units a person could buy that were basically kits that looked like they were a couple of 20 lb propane tanks. They were tather expensive though. The guy we had lined up would have done it for $200. We even had a shop where we could raise the trailers off the ground. Oh well, back to the drawing board!

Dave,

As Nice as that thing is I'mmma thinkin that during the fall of the year it should be Pams deer shootin house! Get ya some better winders for Pam and she would have the nicest shootin house of anyone in the country.

Looks to me like you have the nicest fishin shack I have ever seen! Dude I used to ice fish on the river here just standin out on the ice brrrrr, you really do excel in everything you do, now I really HA! hhhmmmeeennnnnnnvy ya...

You got a plywood floor in that trailer? do an overlay. Just go an inch, it will help a lot.

Strip the floor with 1" narrow boards for stringers & cut foam sheeting to fit between strips then do a new layer of plywood over the top of it all.

A lot of guys insulate small shacks, ice fishing houses, trailers etc that way as an improvement over single layer non insulated floor.

if your cargo isn't to heavy per sq inch you can skip the stripping except for where plywood seams meet. The high density foam will do well between 2 sheets of plywood if it's just atv wheel pressure.

just draw the top sheet down snug with some screws evenly spaced.

Hey wabster, Mama already got the nicest shooting house we have!! I hang my but out in the open on a portable up in a tree our out on the ground in home made ground blinds & mama got the heated elevated shanty with the camo, the sliding windows, the heater, the ladder with hand rail... jeesh!!



Don't worry, I do plenty of out in the open ice fishing too, this here's the family ice fishing house. for the whole family to be able to do an outdoor bitter winter activity in comfort.

These big houses can be a pain in the start & in the end of the season (move times) but they sure are nice to fish out of.

i've never had one before myself, always fished outside or in portable houses (light weight tentish stuff)

So I gotta admit, I'm really loking forward to ice fishing in comfort this year.

you are right though, would be good to get dual use out of these houses.