guy's ice fishing hack #277: leaky stupid plastic gas can alternative

guywhofishes

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If you are like me and you don't like the dumb plastic cans and their leaking, crappy pour spouts, and bouncing around in your sleds then buy a "tractor manual" storage tube and a camping fuel can. I suspect my stuff will never again suffer "gas stank" on a bouncy Winnipeg trip.

The camping gas canister ($18) holds 1/4 gallon - plenty for my purposes (also serves as backup gas with for snowmobile since I use a 4 stroke auger). The tractor manual storage tubes are $5. I can post Amazon links to both if you'd like. It's like they were made for each other. Maybe 1/4 inch room to spare.

I mounted one to my sled hitch and another one to the snowmobile for flexibility (sometimes I leave my shelter/sled behind and scout from just the snowmobile which carries the auger).

2015-12-12 15.32.00.jpg

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This tip is probably useless since everyone's buying electric nowadays but figured it might be useful for a few old gas holdouts.

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I put a bungee cord through the cap to make Enslow happy.
 


Tommyboy

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Awesome tip guywholikestogivethetip!

I also noticed that you have some sort of winch system setup to pull your house up and onto your trailer? Can we see more of that?
 

guywhofishes

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Awesome tip guywholikestogivethetip!

I also noticed that you have some sort of winch system setup to pull your house up and onto your trailer? Can we see more of that?

sure - I can take pics tonight. Basically the older I get and the more crap I put in my shelter the worse it gets every year loading up the sled/shelter at the end of the day. Especially alone!

I have a 10 ft tilt trailer so the angle is pretty aggressive when tilted down for loading. Getting it off is sure easy though ha ha.

Everything is fine loading if it's nice dry conditions - I grab the hitch and drag it up and into position, then it tilts back down and I pin the hitch to a post that sticks up from the floor at the front of the trailer. But when it's wet/snowy/icy it's pretty much impossible one-person task to drag it up. So I recycled a trailer winch to winch it up in circumstance where it's necessary. More to come later.
 

Jigaman

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I really like the Trufuel premixed gas. Handy little can that is comes in.
FUEL%20jpg.jpg
 

SDMF

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sure - I can take pics tonight. Basically the older I get and the more crap I put in my shelter the worse it gets every year loading up the sled/shelter at the end of the day. Especially alone!

Simple solution, 3-4 place snowmobile trailer. Drive on, drive off. Doesn't matter if you've got a snowmobile or an ATV. Plus, the trailer is more useful for other things and having a tandem axle might save you from having to change a tire when it's dark and cold.
 


guywhofishes

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Simple solution, 3-4 place snowmobile trailer. Drive on, drive off. Doesn't matter if you've got a snowmobile or an ATV. Plus, the trailer is more useful for other things and having a tandem axle might save you from having to change a tire when it's dark and cold.

I need a place in the country before I start buying trailers that long
 

SDMF

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I need a place in the country before I start buying trailers that long

You've got plenty of room for it. I bet a 14'er is only ~2' longer than your 10 due to shorter tongue.
 

SDMF

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We'll have to make a run/gun trip and take my 14'er. Very nice at the end of the day to drive up, lock down the sled/ATV in about 20sec and drive home. It takes longer to get the ramp out and in place then put away than it does to load up 2 rigs on the trailer.
 


guywhofishes

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Awesome tip guywholikestogivethetip!

I also noticed that you have some sort of winch system setup to pull your house up and onto your trailer? Can we see more of that?

not the prettiest install but I wanted to avoid putting too much effort into cosmetics until I tested it to see if it was logical and worked well. It does function well (and fast), but I probably will leave it looking Frankenstein.


2015-12-15 08.12.33.jpg Two carriage bolts hold the entire assembly on - so easy off if needed.

2015-12-15 08.12.18.jpgheight of roller is just right to crank into position - then loosen up and drop it down onto pin

I bolted a rope hook onto the standard Otter hitch using existing bolts - non-snaggy design is a plus

2015-12-15 08.12.56.jpg here's how the hitch get's pinned down for going down the road. at this point the winch plays no longer plays a role

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I predrilled the "assembly" 4x4 then hooked it up THEN drilled the holes in the floor. that made putting it in the correct place very easy.

Finally - I had to reverse the crank from right hand to left hand - dang reverse springs aren't sold separate to I blew $10 on a kit just to get the reverse spring. If you buy a crank see if you can find/order a left hand (depends on what side of trailer you have your shelter on of course).

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that asian beetle looks bummed out
 

guywhofishes

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I also screwed three scrap boards down onto my trailer bed - they fit perfectly between the runners of the Otter (the white strips in the back of the pic). They act as track stud damage preventers when the snowmobile crawls up when I haul that - and as centering/security for the Otter sled/shelter. That Otter sled pretty much lines up when it's drug on and doesn't move - ever.

2015-12-15 13.29.44.jpg
 

DirtyMike

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I think I just need to swing by menards and hang out at your place for a weekend. think of the possibilities!

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701FishSlayer

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Or use the Lycan system and just throw some in a 2 litre pop bottle. Believe he brought that out a year or 2 ago on that "other" site.
 

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