Ice is gone here in northern Indiana ponds. Doesn't look safe on the lakes as far as I can tell. Too cold to comfortably open water fish and not get your guides frozen up and I still want to ice fish. Whats a guy to do? Here's my solution until we good ice.
Ice shanty screwed down to the end of the 70 foot pier with deck screws through the floor and washers to keep them from tearing through. I also secured the shanty later with rope (not rope seen laying in pic). She's really on there so I'm don't take a tumble into the water like sandwich in zip lock bag! It's not as flimsy as it looks. The part that is extended over is not the wide and and it's not stepped on anyway Only downside is I am about 10 inches about the water line but I have a small scoop net and long handle so I should be able to scoop fish in if need be. Maybe set it as a safety net right on one side of the opening.
What do you think? I'm so impressed I'm going to drive more posts in the future and build a permanet shed on the pier that I can use for ice fishing in winter and storage in summer. My pier is permanent as ice damage isn't a problem in small ponds. Yeah I know pier needs some adjustment but it's much more sturdier than it looks. Floating thing inthe background is a floating cage where I put feed trained bass fingerlings into until they are large enough to release into the pond. Post with nails on top is for a bug light to hang on and the nails are to keep fish predator birds from landing on it.
