Here is my little review on the XL4000T…
I ordered the XL4000T in December, and received it around Christmas time. Set it up in the yard the day that I got it, which happened to be around 0 (or 32…I’m Canadian, so excuse the Celsius temps). Setup nice and easy, really spacious. Loved it.
First day I went out fishing with it, it was super cold…like -34 (-31 fahrenheit..) without the windchill. Took it out, tried setting it up and the roof wouldn’t stay up….kept collapsing. It was too cold to brave the elements and fish outdoors that day, so I went home feeling defeated.
I called Clam and told them my problem, and it seems its very common. One (or more) of the poles is too long, and has to be removed and trimmed. The same can be done to supposedly fix the tight zipper problem. However, the response I received from Clam was somewhat troubling, in the sense that I was essentially told that if their products were actually all built to proper spec, they’d have to be more expensive. Needless to say, I thought that was a pretty weak excuse.
Now, that being said, after getting the pole trimmed, the XL4000T is quite lovely. We had four adults fishing in it comfortable last weekend, and just today, I had my four young nieces, and four adults in it supervising, and we all managed to fit (although it was tight). It sets up easy, stitching looks really good, seems quite durable, and is substantially warmer than my old non-thermal hub shelter. I looked at the Eskimo Fatfish 949i as well, as they’re really popular up here, but in my opinion, once the pole issue was taken care of the XL4000T seems superior to the Eskimo (in my opinion).