Jonny

While I have some sympathy for this view, I would not risk being wrong by being skeptical, especially where my children and grandchildren are involved. I'm not interested in a gamble when it comes to them, so if H1N1 shots are officially advised, I'd go with the advice. I don't give much of a dam* if pharmaceuticals make some money.

An American tourist asks a Newfie, "Why do divers always fall backwards out of a boat?" Newf replies, "'Cause if dey fell forwards dey'd still be in da *** boat!" --- Cracked me up. Enjoy your morning coffee...

Thanks for the detail. It's always good to know what other guys do to get comfortable. I find that it's the wind that's a killer. I prefer to have shelter even on a minus 5 day if it's windy. Used to be we would at least put up a tarp as a windbreak.

Wow, Chanco said he got one for $179. Big price difference!

Some great detail there, Rover. Posts like yours and many others here (first-hand stuff) are always informative... exactly the kind of stuff that leads to a more informed choice. Once you buy, it's hard to undo. And not having fished in a portable hut, I don't know much about them.

You certainly make a good case for the Clam. What kind of heater do you have? My heater is the one I use in my 6 x 8 regular ice hut - the circular kind (about the size of a pie plate) that mounts on a 20 lb propane tank. I'm afraid that would be too large for any portable, let alone one that is 4 x 6, but at 6 x 6 I'm thinking I just might have enough room to get it out of the way. It's easy to burn yourself on, even on low setting!

I looked it up. It looks OK, and nice to have a built-in floor, but it's a bit small for two people plus a heater. It's only 4 x 6. I don't know what other options you'd have with a portable. If you want at least a 6 x 6 size, and portability, is there anything else out there worth looking at? So far, I think it's either one of those, or the round-top collapsible home-built that's in one of the other threads here.

I wonder if both of them are "Made in China" or if one of them is North American manufacture.

Thanks, SF. That will help in looking for the best buy if one or the other happens to be on sale. I will try the candle wax tip.

Very nice portfolio sampling! Thanks for posting!

Yes, right-clicking the mouse and choosing from the little menu that pops up has the same effect as CTRL-C and CTRL-V. In HTML (again with square brackets to replace the brace brackets), something like {b} begins a command and {/b} ends a command. i.e. {quote} begin quote {/quote} end quote {img} begin image command {/img} end image command

For photobucket, go to your page that shows thumbnails of your photos. Hover your cursor over a photo and a menu appears. Click on "IMG CODE" and you'll see it highlight. Press CTRL-C combination on your keyboard to copy the code. Then go anywhere you want to paste the code and press CTRL-V to paste. For convenience, you can paste a bunch of these codes into something like NOTEPAD and then use them from there. In this forum, when you paste the image code into your post, the picture will appear when you finish the post and upload to the site. Here I've replaced the square brackets with brace brackets so you can see what an image code should look like... {IMG}http://i806.photobucket.com/albums/yy350/hjtoby/stearman1.jpg{/IMG}

We can all do our bit about the little stupidities. The big ones are harder to fight.

At a glance the Sub Zero and Ice Cube portable 2-man ice-fishing shelters look pretty much the same. Anybody had a closer look and have a preference?

Any concerns about that one or is it considered to be inert?

That has to be a joke. Nobody's quite that stupid.

The artificial reef/diving destination concept is a good one. Since all hazardous materials are removed from a warship before sinking it, there shouldn't be any downside to the practice. As for the Osborne tire reef, the quote says that the reef originated as an artificial reef of concrete before the tires were added, so I'm puzzling as to how the tires could be damaging natural reef, when apparently there was none before. I've always thought that rubber was pretty stable. I've seen tires that were immersed in water for 30+ years and once you clean the crud off them, they look pretty fresh. But that's in fresh water. Does salt water degrade them, I wonder? I don't know how Victoria still gets away doing what it does. That's pretty shameful in anybody's book.

That's a good thought, thanks! Could be done.

I think it does. In the ad it shows a Backtrack with "325 yd" and a directional arrow on the screen. Funny, I just ran across one in the new Cabela's Canada catalogue last night. They're selling it for $80 (+ shipping) so it should be a little cheaper elsewhere. The Backtrack can only store 3 waypoints. I've seen the etrex base model for as little as $90.

Map and compass for sure, yes. Low tech and reliable. At the very least a compass and knowing which direction is ÒUT. You have a screen on that unit that shows how many satellites there are and whether you are getting a lock on them. Usually if you get a black bar on 3 satellites you're good to go. If you've got some open sky that should happen within a couple of minutes at the most. If you're not getting any black bars at all, then I would think the unit is defective. The unit should begin its satellite search as soon as you turn it on; there`s nothing special to set.

A Stripper Clause? ... That's pretty damn unfair.

Did somebody say Krazy Karpet? I built a 6 x 8 hut four years ago and used KK strips on the runners (wrapped around, screwed on, overlapped like fish scales) and they've lasted really well. The stuff is also super slippery and when water freezes against it, it can't stick. There's a local store near me that sells KK's every winter. I've got a bunch stashed away for future use. I'm thinking of building a more portable hut (like that rounded one above) --- if I don't end up with an "Ice Cube" instead. The disadvantage I see to the rounded design is that if I pull it behind my snow machine, I have nowhere to store all the gear (power auger, chairs, fishing gear, heater, etc.). That problem would be solved if two machines were going out together - one with the hut and one with a sleigh full of gear - but I'm usually out on my own. The Ice Cube, on the other hand, would fit on top of the box full of gear on the sleigh.

I've seen it commonly at the North Bay Walmart. I'm wondering whether it's widespread?

The most famous of course being the Spitfire.

Ah, good one, thanks. I know the plane. I think it's a Supermarine Walrus. Strange, uncommon old pusher-prop flying boat --- a bundle of struts and wires! There must be one in a museum somewhere. The Ottawa museum is considerably smaller than the one at Wright-Pat but has a fair number of types that the USAF museum doesn't. It's also much more light and airy than the USAF museum, which has quite subdued lighting.