New Otter X-Over Thoughts

I was at Cabela’s this weekend and they had the new Otter ice houses setup, they look pretty nice! I was wondering what everyone thinks of the side entry style?

On one hand, I love the idea of being able to step out sideways instead of stepping over all the ice holes and crap I have on the ice. On the other, it seems like zippers are a failure point and maybe having three sets of them seems risky. Also, will it make the shacks a bit breezier since there isn’t a perfect seal on those zippers? Anyone know if they are as fast to setup? The pole system looks a bit different to accommodate the doors.

I’m in the market for a new shack this year, thinking of going with the Lodge since I have a snowmobile now and anything bigger than the cottage is a PITA to haul out by hand anyways.

Im not a huge fan of anything new, first year. There will be bugs to work out. Heck, some companies never work the bugs out and just switch designs so you never do get a quality product ever. Other companies it seems, get the bugs worked out then change the design just to create problems…

My initial thought of adding 2 more zippers was the same as yours, more points of failure.
BUT… You could also look at it as 2 more zippers as back up. Could always sew one shut if one failed and have 2 more…

Well I partly answered one of my questions, it looks like you detach one of the poles on the frame and re-attach to the bottom-horizontal bar to ‘QUICK SWITCH’ to free up the side door. That’s a clever design that looks like it won’t impact the initial setup time.

I had my first chance to take a look at them over the weekend at Thorne Bros. The mechanism to detach the front poles from the sled and move them down to the lower frame is essentially a U-shaped slot that snaps into place. It was very easy to use.

I’m planning to make the switch this year hoping that being able to have my kids walk out the side will help reduce the number of feet going into a hole and zippers burned by a buddy heater.

Will

mark-bruzek wrote:

Im not a huge fan of anything new, first year. There will be bugs to work out

My thoughts exactly! I “think” they have a winner design, but time will tell…

I too was at Thorne on Saturday and purchased the new lodge x over. Assembled this weekend and found it much easier than a couple years ago. Major improvement! And they are right when they say they reduced assembly time!!!

Once assembled and compared side by side to my old lodge(3 winter’s of use) it is damn near the same unit, only differences were the rear access door is much smaller, not a full door anymore, half the size, I called it more like a “gopher hole”

And obviously the side entry being different. frame poles and where they attach for that seem to be pretty viable for hard use on the ice. And they were easy to use detaching and re attaching to sled.

Overall I don’t think this is the normal first year sucks type product. Otter took the same house and made it much more convenient for two man fishing and kids who fall into holes and everything else while being kids lol! And merely by adding side access. I agree with zipper failure but in 10yrs of fishing the worst zipper catastrophe I’ve had was the tags snapping off in the cold….(already have the back up tags wired to the zipper, ready for when it happens…nothing works at -20 below!!!! IDC how awesome it is! Lol)

I’m with Will R. I made the switch and I don’t think I’ll be looking back! Good luck on the ice!!

Only thing I noticed that worries me is that they bumped down to a 600 denier rather than the 1200. Anyone else think this might be a downside or will it not make a difference?

They’re still 1200 according to their website and the tag on it at Cabelas. I got to really look at them and really liked them. Too bad Otter makes such a good product, because I really can’t say to my wife with a straight face that I need to upgrade from my current one.

Forrest Brenske wrote:

Only thing I noticed that worries me is that they bumped down to a 600 denier rather than the 1200. Anyone else think this might be a downside or will it not make a difference?

The XT is 600 denier and the XT PRO is 1200 denier. Same as in years past.