Hi guys, we are nearing another hard water fishing season and my family is super excited to get out on the ice because we upgraded ice fishing houses (again).

Our previous house was a 2013 model manufactured ice fishing house made by "Ice Castle" fish house company. We really enjoyed the house, used it nearly every weekend during the ice fishing season.

We decided to sell it while it still held strong value, being fairly current model year wise and in excellent condition. We sold it privately, then ordered a new house with the same manufacturer. Yes, we actually ordered a house that we designed, we are super happy with it.

Here's what we settled on.



It's 21' in length plus what ever length the V front adds (probably 4 more feet). It is 8' wide and it rides on a Berkon hydraulic lift frame with tandem axles, rubber torsion springs, elect brakes.







I'm uploading some interior pics now.

The interior is all lined with cedar, walls and ceiling.

The house has spray foam insulation in the walls and also in the floor. The furnace is a forced air 30k BTU, twin 30 lb lp tanks on the front. The house has all LED lighting, has onboard 12 volt charger for maintaining the 2 onboard 12 volt batteries and a converter to supply all the 12 volt lighting and power outlets.

It has a roof mounted air conditioner because we will use it as a camper in the summer months.


A view from the front, looking back. There is a huge full width couch that pulls out to be a bed. We have a small table in front of the couch that is removable. Above the couch is a full sized bed mounted on a track lift system, an elect motor positions that bed, you raise and lower it with a switch that is mounted on the wall. This way the bed can stay made with blankets and pillows and you can just raise it up to the ceiling when not in use.



A couple of views from the back looking forward,





Here is something most guys will like (I think). It is a livewell/baitwell with an aquarium front built into a wall cabinet.



When we are fishing, that thing will be full of fresh lake water, one side will have minnows in it and hopefully the big side will be full of nice walleye, sauger and jumbo perch.



There is a pump that you can pull out of one of the cabinet doors, you drop it down one of the fishing holes and pump lake water into the live well to fill it and to freshen it up when need be.

up front there is another couch that converts to a bed, there is also a bunk above the couch that folds tight against the wall.



Each bunk location has a 110 volt outlet and a 12 volt outlet for charging cell phones or what ever.

At the very front we have a flat screen tv mount with a detachable plate so we can safely store the TV when we are traveling. The TV we use is a 32" with a dvd player and we wire it to a satellite reciever which gets it's feed from a self aiming unit called a "tailgater".



Here's that little satellite unit. we will either set it on the roof or just set it outside of the house. There is a coax port on the exterior of the house that it hooks to. It's very cool, just turn it on and it aims itself, dish network out on the ice, lol.



Here's the kitchen stuff. We opted for no sink as we never used the sink in our old house. We have an RV type range/oven, a mini fridge and a small microwave.



Here's what the fishing holes look like. these round covers snap tightly in place and they are strong, you can walk on them when they are closed. There is a 12v LED light above each fishing hole. I believe there are 9 fishing holes in the floor of this one.

Nice, very nice.

Is that an air conditioning unit on the roof?

Could I borrow some Grey Poupon Dave?

Lastly, way up in the V front there is a small closet for changing clothes and it has what we consider an "emergency chitter", lol.



You can place a camping toilet bucket setup with a liner bag under it and do your horrible business, lol. But honestly, we bring a hunting ground blind with us which we set up outside the fish house with a bucket setup in it for that horrible business. The one in the house is reserved for some midnight emergencies and the girls use it for um... "number 1".

Here is a video of the house setting down and raising back up via the hand held fob control.

Hey, I've always got some yeller mustard I can throw over the border (I really can, we fish right on the border, lol)

But I aint got none of that gray poo-pon.



Yep, for summer use, these things make awesome campers. Camper guys be jealous, climbing their camper steps to get up into their campers. we just let ours down flat on the ground, no rocking, no blocking, no jacks, no stairs.

Damn! Thats nicer ( and bigger) than my house! ( Chitter is inside too!)


Shrapnel is going to be disappointed, as you are obviously in the lead for " The Man Who Dies with the Most Toys" contest.

Now that is roughing it.

I'm no good at deer hunting, but we have this ice fishing thing figured out. Lol.

The cool part is we actually catch a lot of fish too!

I am lovin' it ND...I imagine its warmer than ambient in there.....

Dave, that "hut", looks nigh on to sinful.

Dave

That will be a palace to get the family on the ice! Let's get our deer hung and the ice frozen so the games can begin!

Feels like summertime, will the ice ever come this year?

Wow! You certainly do not disappointment in your endeavors.

Looking forward to the action shots.

ND,

Words cannot describe how jealous I am of that rig! I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to sell it to my wife. Thinking that an underwater camera should be hooked up to that 32" flat screen...


SS

Veddy nice! C'mon Ice!

That does work (the camera thing with the TV). But you have to have decent water clarity.

The upgrade to this new house was actually my wife's idea.

Once we got started with our previous wheel house, she was hooked.

I knew all of you ice fishing guys were serious, but that's crazy. I guess if you're gonna do it, you might as well do it right.

I don't know what that thing costs, but you better hope the ice holds up. Do you leave it out there all winter, or do you drag it back and forth? Will the insurance co. insure it?

For the most part, we leave it out there.

Cost is aprox 1/3 that of a cool new fishing boat.

Insurance? Let hope we never have to find out. lol.

Dave,could I just come and live in it? I promise I'd bring you a car to work on....

Methinks it is downright unneighbourly of Dave to not ask us to join him sometime.

Holy cripes ya got the Holy Grail of all houses.. Nice work, ND. Good call on the live well. And the Dish. I have the Dish tailgator, comes in handy.

Curious do they put any type of manual crank down in case hydros quit working?

the hydro unit has it's own battery, it is separated from the other voltage draws. It is unlikely that the lift battery will be dead when I need it. It's possible though, this is Minnesota, it gets cold and batteries don't like cold.

If it does run low, it can charge through the trailer light plug. So, the battery is being maintained when hooked to the truck. The battery also receives a trickle charge through the onboard converter/charger which is powered by my little honda generator when we are on the ice.

I'm hoping for no problems. I've been watching the hydro lift frames for a few years with skepticism, but people seem to do well with them.

I figure the lift unit is very much like the hydro units I have run on snow plows I have owned over the years, except this unit is out of the snow/wet exposures and has multiple charging sources.

fingers crossed.

Noduck, these are manufactured in montevideo and also in Pine river mn. The Pine river units have a better rep for quality, fit and finish. That's where we got ours.

No words.

Just in awe !

That's probably the coolest ****ING thing I have ever seen in my life.

Thanks. Now we just sit and wait for winter to get here, we are about a month behind schedule in the ice situation.

Huge sadness, not cold enough.

I installed these quilted "thermal" wheel house covers over the weekend and did some minor tinkering inside the house.

The covers help keep drafts down. We bank the bottom perimeter of the house with a little snow that we shovel or kick up against the house. But it's difficult to bank behind the wheels, so someone came up with these snap on covers for the wheel house areas.

Hope y'all stay nice and toasty and catch the crap out of them. It has been about a month later here too. I night fished on October 6th without a shirt. Crazy weather.

We would normally at least be dark house spearing by now (which is afuckinghoot!)

Don't feel bad ND. We only have 5-7" here now. Some ponds as little as 3". I had a close call with a vehicle on ice one time so I'm a bit of a chicken now.

SS

Damn dude, your making me green! That looks like fun! I shoot a good number of carp with a recurve in the spring but that looks like a blast and you can eat them... I will pass on the carp, my neighbor puts them on his garden.

There was a guy on crappie.com that went by crappieKeith who lives up your way. I was gonna take a trip up and ice fish crappie with him but it was an 18 hour trip and I was only gonna have 4 days so I desided to stay home. Kinda wished I had bit the bullet and went anyway.

That is the coolest (no pun intended) fish house I've ever seen. I see you out on the lake, temps around 0 degrees with enough wind to kick up a small ground blizzard, all the while sitting inside watching the game, having a cold one and fresh fish on the stove. Simply outstanding!

Yep, T shirt, jammie pants, slippers, satellite tv, catching fish, cooking fish, eating fish.....


We just need some winter temps.

No kidding Dave,

Big lakes have some skim ice, but basically wide open still.

Checked a pothole lake out last weekend, less than an inch of ice, & probably open again after this coming weekend !