A Portable Pop-Up Ice-Fishing Shack

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When the frozen lakes call you to fish, this handy heated shelter will rise to the occasion .

Ice-Fishing Shack

Northern anglers can enjoy a special brand of sport fishing that those in warmer climates can't experience close to home. The lure of a frozen lake's wintry solitude draws untold people away from their hearths and onto the solid surfaces of countless bodies of water across the land . . . to participate in the popular pastime of ice fishing.

Now, the old regulars know that being comfortable while hunkering over a hole in the ice is tantamount to being successful, simply because an alert angler is less likely to miss a strike. It follows, then, that a completely enclosed, weathertight structure equipped with a convenient and safe form of heat would make for more successful outings than would the open-faced windbreaks that many fisherfolk pit against winter's cruelty.

With that in mind, our research staffers set their sights on designing and building the best ice-fishing shelter imaginable without going overboard on materials costs . . . and until it was completed they didn't realize that they'd incidentally created an excellent pop-up camper, hunting shack, playhouse, and emergency shelter!

Let's look at some of the benefits of this utilitarian design. To begin, at 4' wide, 6' long, and nearly 6-1/2' tall, the structure is spacious enough to comfortably accommodate even two large adults for the eight- or tenhour stints expected of it. Yet in three minutes' time it can be folded up into a 9"-high, 4' X 8' self-contained package that can be pulled along the ice on built-in runners, or lifted into the back of a pickup truck.

Inside, the shelter sports two sizable folddown seats, removable floor hatch covers, armrests, coat hooks, and a window with a sliding shade. Furthermore, it's designed to incorporate a homebuilt kerosene heaterfully detailed on page 108 of this issue—that's inexpensive, compact enough to fold up with the shelter, and capable of keeping the chill off on the coldest of days. (It draws combustion air from the outside to minimize the risks of oxygen depletion.) Finally, the hut's polyethylene tarp skin (which allows the shack to fold and reduces its weight and expense) is lined with a reflective plastic which helps insulate the shelter and retain interior warmth.

TACKLING THE SHACK

A look at the accompanying illustrations will reveal that the structure is, in the main, made of 1/4" and 5/8" plywood sheathing (AB or AC grade), 1 X 3 and 1 X 4 furring strips, a couple of 4'-long 1 X 5s, 1/8" metal stock, and hinges and other assorted hardware.

To aid in your understanding of how the project goes together, we've prepared separate detail drawings of the two end walls and the roof components. Essentially, the shelter is just a tray on runners; the stove-equipped wall is designed to hinge down on top of the tray, with the window-and-door wall folding to cover it. The structural members that hold the walls steady and give the roof shape fit easily into the tray once the framework is dismantled, and the flexible side walls and roof fold neatly between the two end walls.

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