Where did "Bob" house come from?

[Gillgrabber]

Forgive me for asking guys, but where did the term "Bob House" come from?  I know that's what you New Englanders call your Shanties but I don't know why.  My Son asked me and I didn't have an answer.   I figure there might be a good story behind it.  Anyone know?

[newfound]

Because it's a house, if left alone too long will bob up and down in the water. 
Seriously, that's a guess.  I have no idea.

NB

[james]

This is what i came up with when i googled "bobhouse"

Home Sweet Hut

Dear Word Detective: In New Hampshire, Spring doesn’t officially arrive until “ice out” is declared — but we start getting our hopes up for warmer weather when the local news anchors remind us that’s it’s time to bring in the bobhouses for the year. While the local population generally knows what a “bobhouse” is (a portable fishing shanty, placed on a frozen body of water, to protect the fisherman while he/she fishes through a hole in its floor), no one seems to know the term’s origins. Some say it’s from the “bob” on the line that lets the fisherman know he’s hooked something. Some say it’s from the way the shanties themselves might bob a few times before going under, when their owners forget to bring them in off the ice before the Spring thaw. While I haven’t yet heard anyone claim that it’s for some legendary fisherman named “Bob,” I suppose I shouldn’t dismiss that possibility out of hand. I’m actually wondering, though, if it’s from a similar origin as “bobsleigh,” referring to the short runners sometimes mounted on the bottom to make it easier to shift the shanty out on the ice. Can you defrost the history on this one? — Katrina.

That’s an interesting question. I’ve never given much thought to ice fishing, possibly because I grew up next to the Atlantic Ocean, which only freezes every few million years.


OK, now put me back.
I can find no indication that “bobhouse” has anything to do with anyone named “Bob,” although, knowing how people love colorful word origin stories, I’m sure that if anyone ever starts a “bobhouse museum,” an apocryphal “Bob” (perhaps even a “Bob House”) will appear in its brochures.

As for the verb “to bob,” meaning “to move up and down,” a 1954 article cited in the Dictionary of American Regional English confidently traces the term “bobhouse” to just such a motion: “Some fishermen have wire springs that bob up and down, whence the name ‘bob house’.” It’s unclear from that snippet whether the springs are mounted on the houses, the fishing lines, or the fishermen themselves, although I suppose it must refer to the lines. I’m actually very skeptical of this assertion, however. Even if some icefishers did attach springs to their lines, that hardly seems a sufficiently novel practice to determine the name of such an outlandish structure as a tiny hut sitting on a frozen lake. The springs, in other words, are not the story here.

I’d be willing to bet, on the other hand, that your hunch is correct and that the “bob” in “bobhouse” is the same “bob” as is found in “bobsleigh” (or “bobsled”), “bobtail” and a slew of other “bob”-words. This “bob” comes from the verb “to bob,” meaning “to cut short” (as a horse with cropped tail is called “bobtailed”). The verb “to bob” came from the noun “bob,” which originally meant “a bunch, lump or cluster,” possibly from the Irish word “baban,” meaning “cluster” (of grapes, etc.). In the case of “bobhouse,” the term simply means a “bobbed,” i.e., extremely small, house or hut.

Incidentally, the verb “to bob” meaning “to bounce up and down” is considered a separate word from “to bob” meaning “to cut short,” but the two may be related through the noun “bob” in its original sense of “lump.” In English “bob” took on several meanings in the sense of “hanging weight,” including the weight on a fishing line or pendulum. The “bouncing” verb kind of “bob” may well have been inspired by the motion of such “bobs.”

[Thumber]

Nice work James, A+ for today's grade.

I always thoughts it came form the word Bobbing which means up & down motion, years back that's all you did ways jig or bob for fish through the ice with a wooden jig stick and line, than the tip ups were developed

[Zorros shack]

To make it short and easy for you, old timers say they use to take the shantys out on Bob Sleds. Hence the name bob house.

[whtailhunter319]

i was always told that the term "bobhouse" came from the smelt fisherman ice fishing on the brackish tidal waters as when the tide goes in and out the shanty "bob's" up and down with the tide.

[hardwatergrampa]

it got its name from all the shanties gathering in one spot on the lakes to smelt fish making up a small shanty town ,they would take the spring steel from woman's corsits and mount one over each hole in the shanty and bob the spring up and down to attract the smelts ( same idea as the spring board used today ) after talking with your nabor or enjoying a warm cup of rum with him they would always say iam going back to the bob house to bob up some smelts if your shack was not part of the shanty town it was called a shanty  the days of seeing 2-3 hundred bob houses in Maine has been long gone  i can still remember the smelt fisherman fighting with the fish and game dept trying to stop them from putting browns in the lakes calming it would ruin the smelt fishing  well it wasn't long before the guys fishing for smelt started catching browns most of the time if you caught a brown it would cross all the lines in your shanty and even the guys in the camp next to you  those that got caught were killed and cut open to see how many smelts it had eaten  many would have ten to 15 smelts in them . just be glad you werent the warden or bio walking into that village after a brown was caught  with in a couple years the smelt were gone and so was a part of fishing history on that lake  the state has tried several times to reintroduce the smelt to this lake in so Maine but they have never come back 

[riverjunky]

very interesting

[landlockedsalmon]

They thought Robert house sounded funny.  lol

[timschrots]

it got its name from all the shanties gathering in one spot on the lakes to smelt fish making up a small shanty town ,they would take the spring steel from woman's corsits and mount one over each hole in the shanty and bob the spring up and down to attract the smelts ( same idea as the spring board used today ) after talking with your nabor or enjoying a warm cup of rum with him they would always say iam going back to the bob house to bob up some smelts if your shack was not part of the shanty town it was called a shanty  the days of seeing 2-3 hundred bob houses in Maine has been long gone  i can still remember the smelt fisherman fighting with the fish and game dept trying to stop them from putting browns in the lakes calming it would ruin the smelt fishing  well it wasn't long before the guys fishing for smelt started catching browns most of the time if you caught a brown it would cross all the lines in your shanty and even the guys in the camp next to you  those that got caught were killed and cut open to see how many smelts it had eaten  many would have ten to 15 smelts in them . just be glad you werent the warden or bio walking into that village after a brown was caught  with in a couple years the smelt were gone and so was a part of fishing history on that lake  the state has tried several times to reintroduce the smelt to this lake in so Maine but they have never come back 

Best explination so far, I think, or it sounds the most, "first hand"

I love these (where did it come from topics)

[hardwatergrampa]

Best explination so far, I think, or it sounds the most, "first hand"

I love these (where did it come from topics)

my explination comes from what i remember as a little kid my dad wasnt into fishing and worked about 70 hrs a week brnging up 6 kids so my grandfather would pick me up on the weekends and take me with him to his shanty and as they say those were the good old days another thing there was some real nice wall paper in most of those shanties ,

[landlockedsalmon]

Best explination so far, I think, or it sounds the most, "first hand"

I love these (where did it come from topics)

my explination comes from what i remember as a little kid my dad wasnt into fishing and worked about 70 hrs a week brnging up 6 kids so my grandfather would pick me up on the weekends and take me with him to his shanty and as they say those were the good old days another thing there was some real nice wall paper in most of those shanties ,

Yes Hardwatergrampa,but in those days the wallpaper still had some clothes on!!lls

[oak]

In the case of “bobhouse,” the term simply means a “bobbed,” i.e., extremely small, house or hut.


"I think"

[hardwatergrampa]

Yes Hardwatergrampa,but in those days the wallpaper still had some clothes on!!lls

oh no not all of them  there were a lot that didnt