If Ice Castle keeps raising their price they will be back in inline with Lodge houses. I still think Lodge are a superior build house but they are much more expensive that an IC. I have a friend that has had two ice castles and both have had issues. Not huge by any means. But his brand new custom build house was sent from the factory to the dealer and he picked it up and in his first picture of a big fish he then realized in the picture that on one side of the house they had completely missed a piece of trim. There it was on one side of the center beam but not the other. Again not a huge deal but still I would think their factor QC should have noticed that.

Cameron what tends to be a good access point that has mud being less of an issue? We’re going to be up next weekend. Low to mid thirty’s guessing that might be a huge issue for us.

Around Zipple far less of the broken up ice and travel is better. We’ll see after today and tomorrow’s snow. Last weekend I was out with Arnesen’s on 16 mile I have never seen broken up ice so far out 8 miles out and everywhere you looked you’d see broken ice.

I’ve have two white bear hoodies and they are great reinforced where needed. My first last close two 6 years wearing it a lot and finally it wore out where the cuffs attach to the sleeves. Got a new one. That and a good windproof vest like a North face and I am set most of the winter.

Like mentioned above generally the air circulating around the unit is the problem. I always set mine in the back of the pickup with the cover rolled down and just leave the end gate open with exhaust pointed out that seems to work decent. I have though had times still where it didn’t and we had to bring the generator in overnight to thaw out. The insulated box is a really good idea.

I spend alot of time in a wheel house and shut down my generator at night so I don’t always get my batteries fully charged between stopping fishing for the day and going to bed. For me I get as big of a battery as I can. I put 10 amph batteries in mine this year. They are taller so you might have to mancure your shuttle but a 9 amph is the same size as and 8.

525 teams this year 490 teams from last year registered so it left 35 lottery spots. $100 team entry fee. 200,000 in prizes this year. It’s an absolute blast we will continue to fish it as long as we are able. I think the first year we fished it probably was 2003 and there were 70 teams it has grown a lot.

Heading there in about 2 hours. I believe this is the 13th year for me there. I have been blessed a couple times for good prizes. Won a wheeled house one year wished I could bring it this year but with the ice we’ll be doing atvs and otters. It’s has been fun to watch it grow to what it is today. A well ran tournament for it size for sure.

I experience the same thing just this past weekend. Was fishing about 5’shallowest that I have ever used it in. My graph read at 5 feet but the digital readout kept saying 10′. I only have visibility of my line for the bottom 1.5-2 feet then it black out. Switch between 8 and 20 degree moved the transducer up and down all seem the same. Switch between all the different ranges. Finally just lived with it hopefully something can be done software wise to correct it.

I’ll have to use Glenn-d advice and see it that changes it for me. Didn’t think about switching to open water mode.