Have any of you speared out of a flip style portable? If so, how hard is it to do without killing yourself or risking killing yourself in stepping around or over the spear hole? Thanks.

I have done it many times, it works. Yes you have to a little more carefull but it's just as fun when the ice is not ready for the big house!!

Mike

I have built and seen many people build floors for flip shacks. Cut a square in a piece of plywood and put hinges for a door. When you leave you can close it much safer than a wide open hole.

My dad has done it a few times as well. Its not that hard. The key is to make sure you bank it tight enough. Also, get your self a piece of carpet to put down on the ice for your feet, so you dont slip!

I haven't speared for a handfull of years and am getting back into it this year but will be doing so from a voyager...how soon do you think it'll be till i want to build/find a perm? How often do you guys move around from lake to lake / spot to spot???

Have you found one yet?



Usually every couple of weeks. Though if a hole hasn't produced for two sits, it rarely gets a third chance.

I don't move much at all.

I will jump from lake to lake with a separate smaller portable though.

I leave my 8 X 8 set up all winter long in the same spot.
Some days it is good other days I don't see a single northern.
That is why it is called fishing though.

The good thing is that when the northerns are not moving the perch are biting.

When you look at I don’t get many days on the lake as it is.
With a perfect season there are about 15 weeks to darkhouse spear.

Some of those weekends are spent on very thin ice and others are spent on very thick ice(ie lotsa work to cut a 2 foot by 3 foot hole in the ice).

On weekdays I work for a living, and in the winter time I go to work in the dark and come home in the dark.
So that leaves weekends for me to spear.

If I don’t want to pay for a divorce, I know I need to spend weekend afternoons with my wife.
So that leaves weekend mornings

Sunday mornings are church.
So that leaves Saturday mornings.

So in the end with a perfect season, no family outings etc I get about 15 half days to spear a year, so I really want to minimize the labor it takes to move move move and would rather enjoy my time on the lake rather than chase fish.

But for me darkhouse spearing and fishing in general is much more than harvesting as many fish as you can.

i haven't found a perm yet. i'm sure what will happen is i'll see how the portable goes this year and put together a perm over the summer.

how nice it would be to have endless funds to buy/build whatever a guy wants but i'll be grateful for what i have.

you like the 8x8 for a spear shack size?

The 8 X 8 is very nice for 2 people.

Plenty of room for everyone’s stuff.

My holes are a little on the small side.
I will open them up for this year.
That will give each person less room but I don’t think it will matter too much.

My 8 X 8 has holes in opposite corners.

BNS has an 8 X 8 with one hole that you could swim in, polar plunge anyone?

That is the great thing about spearing shacks, you can set them up however you want them.

I also saw a guy who had a 8 X 8 with a 2 foot X almost 8 foot hole along the one side.

I do recomend hole covers though!!

Keeps the muskrats out, the over-icing to a minimum, and adds a little safety to the mix.

YOU KNOW THATS RIGHT!!!!! NO REASON NOT TO

it's one thing to fall through the ice by chance, but by a hole that you created on purpose...that would definitely suck!!! i second the covers, even for the things that can be replaced.

thankfully i've never lost anything of importance down a hole (except fish ) but i've heard of it many a time.

one time a relative of mine snagged his sunken gps by the rubber molding with the aid of a hook/line. he said it took him over an hour with the fishin pole and camera.

I heard of someone losing an ice saw though the ice once before.

Dude I didnt know we were related I lost my GPS in mille lacs 27 fow and caught with a chubby darter the next day with the aid of a camera

hehe

if you weren't able to get it snagged, you could've given me coordinates and i could've buzzed up there and gone geocaching for the first time