Ice gear DIY

[Rugger]

I find that ice fishing lends itself to tinkering, so I thought it would be interesting to share our Basement Creations.

I'll start with a couple and will add more as I unpack and prep my gear for the season.

There was a thread about ff's through the ice and keeping non ice transducers straight; here's what I've been using for the past 15 years:


Hockey stick, window screen frame, a couple scraps of metal and some nuts and bolts. Lower hole is for thinner ice.


With arms closed.
The part that sticks out of the hole makes it super easy to grab and pull out of the hole when you've got a big fish on.

When I started with my dad we would put everything in milk crates and into the toboggan, then when we got there we would flip the crates and use them as seats.
At that point just about everything that was in the crates was being used, but as I expanded my ice gear I didn't like the fact that I had to dump everything out of the crates to sit down and the fact that they are far from water proof was also an issue.

I upgraded to a big tupperware tub and it was pretty good but after a while it would no longer hold my 230lbs. The sides would collapse inwards and then it would give, if I could stop it form folding in it would hold me no problem. Also being so big, keeping things organized was tough.
I fixed both problems by making a snug fitting shelf:

[mastercaster]

COOL - I made almost exactly the same thing about 12 years ago. I used bolts and wing nuts and many holes for varying ice thickness'.

MC

[patvetzal]

Why not just leave it at the deepest setting?

[Rugger]

You're right Pat, not that important. It interferes a little less with your line when jigging when it's not as deep. My set-up stayed in the deep setting for the vast majority of the time.

[phoenix]

Here is what i made for this year, tried it out once, works pretty good, think i might trim off some of the foam. $3 in stuff from Home Depot and a pool noodle.

[phoenix]

Here the setup for the head unit

[chris1395]

Here is what i made for this year, tried it out once, works pretty good, think i might trim off some of the foam. $3 in stuff from Home Depot and a pool noodle.

Looks good, looks very similar to my setup. You likely don't need nearly that much foam, I had a 4" piece of pipe insulation zip tied to my cord and it more than floated it. I have actually since done away with the foam as I found it worked just as well or better to just drop the ducer in the hole and hang by itself, if I want it deeper I just pull out a bit more cord from the box.


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[chris1395]

Here's my latest tinker project, I mounted Clam auger mounts to a 2x4 so I could centre the auger over my bike. If I just bolted the mounts to the rack, the bit would overhang one side by at least 2 feet or more. That would make it very difficult to get down narrow trails. The 2x4 is u-bolted to the rack, so when summer comes it's 5 minutes to remove and no messing around to bolt back on next year. Tried it out this past weekend, went between some trees that I could have never gotten by without taking the auger off if it wasn't centred and it was solid as a rock and very secure. Simple but I'm very happy at least for this season.



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[phoenix]

Looks good, looks very similar to my setup. You likely don't need nearly that much foam, I had a 4" piece of pipe insulation zip tied to my cord and it more than floated it. I have actually since done away with the foam as I found it worked just as well or better to just drop the ducer in the hole and hang by itself, if I want it deeper I just pull out a bit more cord from the box.


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Thanks ive cut it down a bit now, as the noodle would want to float sideways and was not hanging properly. Im thinking of hanging a weight on it near the bottom as well, once the wire gets cold it stiffens up and its harder to get it to hang properly.

[Rugger]

Here's a project I put together last fall in anticipation of a sketchy ice season
Chunk of scrap metal


Cleaned up with the grinder


Welded (not much of a welder... )


Luckily a little work with the grinder hides some of the sloppiness


Ready for the ice