Homemade Ice Fishing Stuff

BigwoodsHunter asked me about my home made ice fishfinder that doubles as my open water sonar. Part of this set up is the Humminbird sonars (matrix 37, and the newer 597dHD). I mention both because this gives me two of the snap on mounting brackets so I don't have to unscrew the boat one to use on my cedar ice fishing box in the pic. The best part is; the transducer for the 37 works great with the 597 so I can drag around the unit with a mapping chip out on the ice, by unsnapping it from my boat and popping it on my "ice box". The close up is for how I bolted and taped the 'ducer to the Tite-Loc clamp built to make any unit portable ($40 bucks? from Fleet). Note the little hardware straps that allow the connection of the transducer. The middle pic shows the parts laid out, including the taped up insulated "bag" I made to help the battery keep it's charge on the colder mornings.

I do but workin the weekend. Will post this week

LED tip up lights. I'm makin a bunch if anyone is interested. Super bright

Just had a thought on the attached marker. If you made it from say.....1/2 a yard stick, you would have a ruler at each tip up to check that 15" eye.

These are two things I did to my Beaver Dams many years ago.

First I used a hacksaw and cut, then filed smooth a slot into the top part of the ring. If a pike runs off a bunch of line I can just slip it out of the ring and wrap it back on the spool much quicker, also nice if wrapping big hooks or line markers that won't fit through the hole.

I added a tip up marker made from a piece of 1 x 1/4 aluminum bar I had (could also use hardwood). I attached it through the same bolt hole that's already there and with the wing nut it's always with the tip up and folds down for storage. You could make these as long as you think needed, I painted and added reflective tape.

I like breathing and don't like bleeding, so I don't think I would try to make that contraption go 4 times as fast as it presently does. 

The only thing I use that is homemade are chisels and those I make at work.

Ice cleats do the trick so I don't slip off that board.

Have you thought about putting a stomp pad or some friction tape on the board? 

You'll have to post a video of the beast in action.

It looks like for Mendota, Monona, and Wingra, everything needs floats. For the rest of the county, the vehicle has to weigh more than 750 lbs.

https://parks-lwrd.countyofdane.com/documents/pdf/FloatInspectionInfo2017_2018.pdf

Thanks guys. It definitely makes me laugh at it's sheer ugliness.

Sherriff's website states any "motorized vehicle" or something like that needed floatation.

I have not jumped any ice heaves as yet.

Since I put it together in the dead of winter I did not feel like regearing it for speed.

It would not be hard to slip on a direct pully to the driveshaft and quadroople my speed.

I may add a seat to make life even more interesting.

As it is I stand on the snowboard and steer it by stepping a foot off and redirecting the ugly monster.

Putting ATV tires on might be a move for deeper snow. Now it seems to be fine in 5 inches or so before the snowboard starts to lift it up a bit.

Necessity-the mother of invention.

Hunt2labs, have you considered re-gearing your transmission?  Think it would be as simple as changing a pulley on the motor output.  Without the tines on there you should have plenty spare horsepower to probably double your speed or maybe more.  However more might be kinda scary...  

 Bacon

Hunt2labs  You rock.  In this day an age of it can't be fixed don't save any thing for parts, you made it work.  I saw a video once of a guy who took a plastic sled with a wooden box for a seat and just hung on to his rototiller handle bars worked great for him.