Think Ice

As most of us have come to terms with the warm winter in the Northeast, it has been a struggle to find safe ice without traveling hours to get to it.  Probably the only weekend available in CT for those of us who work all week was this past weekend (20th & 21st) of January.  Yet as the ice was staging to be safe at home, I had already planned a trip north to Lake Champlain to guarantee a safe outing.  

Leading up to the trip departure date, the warm weather had everyone itching to get on the ice.  Compared to last year's cold winter with plenty of the hard stuff to go around, this year since Christmas my mind burning up with thoughts of ice.  Three weeks of thinking about stepping onto it and drilling holes to setup was enough to make me go nuts with cabin fever or I could do something creative to attempt to pass the time.  My decision fell onto making what time I could spend on the ice the most productive, and since I cannot stand looking for a particular item such as a pair of pliers, ice scoop, hooks etc for more than a few seconds while on the ice I knew I had to make my Jet Sled organized.  

Anyone who has ice fished before knows that a pile of tip-ups at the end of the day becomes a tangled, frozen mess at the end of the day.  Additionally, the end of the day comes with sore shoulders, tired feet, and the strong nap time feeling that does not allow one to sort through the tangles in preparation for the subsequent day.  Capt. Blaine Anderson of Connecticut Outfitters had been posting pictures of his outings as he too had been heading north to find safe ice.  From one of the pictures, I noticed he had a sled made up with rod holders that he was utilizing as Tip-up holders.  There wasn't a close-up shot of it, but I understood the purpose and started brainstorming a custom ice fishing sled to fit in my current plastic Jet sled.  The basic requirements for me were that, while making a wooden box to fit inside the sled I wanted a cover, an open bottom to allow snow melt to sit in the sled and not soak into the wood, space to mount jig rod holders, tip up holders, and to fit the power-head of  my Jiffy Model 30 into the box.

Included in my consideration of a tricked out ice fishing sled was how many items I need to bring on the ice. In Connecticut, a licensed angler can fish six (6) lines, tip-ups or jigging rods at any one time. (please check the current year's CT DEEP's angler's guide for current regulations).  In Vermont specifically the Lake Champlain body of water, a licensed angler can fish fifteen (15) lines.  (please check with Vermont's current year rules and regulations, and for specific bodies of water).   So I knew that I needed to hold 15 at most, plus two holders for my jigging rods for 17 in all.  After taking some basic measurements of the jet sled interior, the auger power head and figuring out what size PVC pipe the tip ups would fit into, I headed to Home Depot for supplies.

I purchased roughly an 8'longx2'wide piece of pine scrap board.  Because I needed a box approximately 2'x2'x2'high all the way around, some metal corner brackets for rigidity, box of wood screws, four metal tie-down loop to secure to the sled as bungee cord hook points, a box of nuts and bolts 100 count for all the pvc pipe tip-up/rod holders.  I also planned on utilizing whatever scrap wood or PVC board I had leftover from my last spring's boat project (see my earlier blogs). 

As you can see picture above, I made a basic frame to sit in the bottom of the Jet Sled (measuring from the bottom since the walls are wider at the top).  I also have accumulated a variety of tip-ups from the larger ones to the left, flat Lake Champlain style tip-ups pictured bottom, and smaller style tip-ups pictured right.  Accordingly, 2" PVC was necessary for the larger tip-ups, PVC board cut to create slots for the flat style, and 1.5" PVC for the smaller tip-ups.  Inside the box, I also did not want the auger's power head to sit on the ground while in transit behind a sled or ATV so I used two 1.5" PVC pipes notched to hold the handle in place and its own weight to hold it in place.  The hole drilled in the front part of the box you see allows the auger bit to slide into the sled which retains it from lateral movement during transit.  Not pictured are two of the bungee cord tie-downs bolted to the front of the sled to secure the auger bit at the front of the sled.  Also the bucket pictured will actually sit in front of another 5 gal. bait bucket both slid to the opposite side of the auger bit.  In creating this setup, initial deployment on the ice will be easy and pickup will create a system ready to go the next morning.

I did add two jig rod holders that sit above the hole drilled through the box as mentioned above, and I had an extra ram mount rod holder for a boat sitting around so I mounted it to my jigging bucket so I could put it down without reeling in to attend to a sprung tip up flag.  I also utilized my excess boat carpeting as a temporary cover to keep snow out of the box.  Now to test it out......................................