The Art of Elevated Racks

Ice Team Pro Rick Johnson helps you build or source elevated racks for your Fish Trap, auger, and other gear

By Mark Strand

In the summer, a boat and motor is the classic vehicle for moving anglers from one place to another. In the winter, ice anglers used to accept their fate: drill one set of holes and sit over them until it was time to go home.
Now we talk about big moves and small moves. Dave Genz and his friends drove the modern ice fishing revolution, and started talking about mobility. You don’t have to sit there all day and catch nothing. But you do have to come up with a way to get from one place to another.
In the early days, we used to pull Fish Traps behind snowmobiles and ATVs, even hook them to the bumper and drag ‘em down the ice behind a vehicle. We tied chains of Traps together, like a choo-choo train, and sometimes we rode in the Trap while it was being pulled. Towing Traps is still a good way to make big moves, but it has disadvantages.
Primarily, it’s the bouncing and jarring that tosses your gear around as it’s pulled down the ice. Drive too fast and your stuff is a mess by the time you get to Point B.

Elevated Rack Concept
A great refinement came in the form of racks designed to get your Fish Trap and auger up off the ice. Today’s ultra-mobile ice angler, in fact, fishes outside much of the time, wearing an Ice Armor suit, using the Fish Trap as organized storage for rods, Vexilar, jigs, heater, and other essentials. The Trap comes off the elevated rack after you nail down an area that’s holding catchable fish, and you flip up the walls to settle in and get your dabble down.
(On particularly cold days, the Fish Trap is used while prospecting, shielding you from the elements as you check virtually every hole.)
Many of you have written to ask where Genz and other Ice Team pros get their elevated racks, and whether there is a way to build one yourself.
It’s not extremely difficult to build your own elevated rack for mobile ice fishing, and if you’ve ever been to a weigh-in at a Trap Attack or NAIFC tournament, you’ve probably noticed a wide variety of racks, made from various materials.

Where They Came From
Most of the innovation we are aware of came from the workshop of Rick Johnson, an extremely handy guy with power tools in addition to being a great ice fisherman. Rick has been working closely with Genz since the start, and it was he who constructed the first elevated racks on the back end of snowmobiles and eventually ATVs.
Johnson’s creations include some that mesh with Arctic Cat’s Speed Rack system. Despite the obvious value of such racks to modern ice anglers, though, this accessory remains difficult to find on the commercial market.

What if you Want One?
If you don’t have an elevated rack for your machine, there are several options, one of which involves bringing your ATV or snowmobile to northern Minnesota in the summer months:

• Build it yourself. We’ll get into details on some of the ideas that we have seen work.
• Order one from a local fabrication shop.
• Set up an appointment with Rick Johnson and bring him your machine in the summer. The guy who invented the first racks has made about 60 of them for fellow anglers, one at a time. Every machine is a little different, so each has to be made to order.

He can’t do it in the winter, because he’s busy ice fishing, but would be happy to make you a custom creation if you leave your ATV or snowmobile with him for a couple weeks.
Only catch to this final option is you have to either live close to northern Minnesota or be willing to transport your machine to and from Johnson’s shop. (Details to come.)

Have it Made Locally
If you’re not handy, or too busy to be handy, you can track down a local steel/aluminum fabrication shop and have a rack custom built to your machine.
Just look in the phone book, or Google steel fabrication (toss in your state or province in the search word field) and see what comes up.
“Or anybody who does welding,” says Johnson. “They all have square tubing, angle iron and other stock, and they can cut and shape it to whatever you need. Bring your Fish Trap, and your snowmobile or ATV. Say you want to mount the Trap up on the machine, and they’ll figure out what it would take to mount it.”
Many people want racks that can be quickly mounted for use in ice fishing season, then quickly removed when it’s time to use the machine for another purpose. This is especially true for ATV owners, who might use the same machine for hunting, outdoor chores, trail riding, or other pursuits.
Arctic Cat owners love the Speed Rack system, and anything you can do to create a piece that works seamlessly with it will reward you. Just pull a couple pins and slide in or out the Fish Trap elevated rack.
But even if your machine does not have a Speed Rack system, it’s usually simple to create a rack that can be tightened to the framework or gear rack using U bolts or other fasteners.

Empty Tubs are Handy
You don’t have to go this route, but many elevated racks use a spare ‘tub’ (sled), the same one your Fish Trap is built around. Find one at a garage sale, use one from an older fish house, or purchase one from Clam Customer Service. (Note: all spare tubs are sold out for the winter of ’08-’09, but there will be some available in late summer or early fall of ’09.)
The premise is this: create a way for the spare tub to be fastened securely to the rear of the ATV or snowmobile, and that produces the ultimate ‘nest’ for your Fish Trap to sit in.
If you don’t have a spare tub, don’t despair. You can create an empty nest of the proper dimensions, as long as it supports your Fish Trap well while you’re underway.

Building Your Own
Despite how fancy and store-bought Rick Johnson’s racks look, it’s easier than you might think to craft one of your own that will work just fine.
Johnson works primarily with steel, and after it’s cut, bent, welded and painted, looks like something made at the factory. But as long as you don’t mind the appearance of 2x4s or other easy-to-shape-and-connect materials, you can do it yourself.
“It doesn’t have to be fancy,” says Johnson. “Some of the designs I’ve seen out on the ice are pretty clever. You can bolt or screw together 2x4s and make something that’s really strong, and it doesn’t cost much.”
Snowmobiles are more difficult to fit than ATVs, says Johnson.
“I’ve probably made about 60 racks,” he says, “and they’ve all been different, based on the model of the machine. ATVs are pretty simple, especially if you have an empty tub. Just bolt the tub on and you’re done (there’s more, but we’ll supply details in a minute).”
One important concern is what happens to the balance point when you add the weight of a Fish Trap and all your gear to the back of the machine. Get too much weight too far back and it becomes difficult or impossible to steer, because the front tires (ATV) or skis (snowmobile) are touching down too lightly. That’s why all designs place the ‘rear’ of the Fish Trap right behind the driver, and the ‘nose’ or ‘front’ of the Trap is what sticks out farthest behind the machine. That’s also why you should pack the heaviest gear at the ‘rear’ of the sled in your Fish Trap (closest to the center of balance). Use the ‘front’ of the sled for lightweight items or leave it empty.
A simple ATV rack can be several 2x4s attached via carriage bolts to an empty Fish Trap tub, then the assembly is attached to the rear cargo rack on the ATV. The 2x4s run parallel with the length of the tub, and provide backbone for the elevated rack.
If you don’t have an empty tub to use as a base, then simply create a supportive nest that features cross members, such as additional 2x4s, so the Fish Trap is easy to load, is securely held under transport, and comes off easily when you arrive at a fishing spot.
“It ain’t rocket science,” notes Johnson. “Use steel, or aluminum, or 2x4s, and just fasten it on there however you have to do it. There’s more than one way, and if you sit in your garage with the pieces you’ll see what you have to do.”

Snowmobiles can be Tricky
Depending upon track length and what type of accessory rack or other bracing comes on a snowmobile, that changes the challenges when creating an elevated Fish Trap rack.
“I’ve done a lot (of racks) on small, short-track snowmobiles,” says Rick. “I have to take the seat off, take the seat assembly out, and create something else so the Fish Trap sits where the seat used to be. The driver ends up sitting right in the Fish Trap, on something as simple as a boat cushion. It’s a pretty good way to get around for a couple hundred bucks.”
Beyond this, there’s no end to the details surrounding individual snowmobiles.
“There are three basic lengths of tracks on snowmobiles,” points out Johnson. “You can have 121 inches, 136 inches, or 156 inches.
“The 121-inch track is a normal short track machine. The only way to mount a Trap on this type of snowmo (Rick’s favored abbreviation) is to remove the seat and mount the rack directly to the tunnel.
“The 136-incher is what the manufacturers refer to as a long track, and is found on most touring machines. On these snowmos, the rack should be mounted so it extends over the passenger seat. If you try to build the rack so you can still use the passenger seat, the weight ends up too far to the rear and makes the machine almost impossible to steer.
“The 156-inchers are found on big utility machines, and are best suited for rack attachments and for 2-up travel.”
Rick mentions that, if you’re in the market for a used snowmobile, consider the Arctic Cat Panther, model years 1998-2004. He says it’s one of the easiest machines to build a Trap rack for, and a fairly common model found on the used market.

Auger Racks
Another accessory commonly seen on modern ice fishing snowmobiles and ATVs is some type of U- or V-shaped cradle intended to hold a power auger. For completely understandable reasons, manufacturers of snowmobiles and ATVs do not endorse the idea of temporarily lashing down an auger, particularly on the front end of the machine.
Many ice anglers, accepting personal liability for the decision, do it anyway.
If you decide to do this, understand up front that it’s your idea, and you accept full responsibility for securing the auger every time you place it in the rack, and for keeping the auger guard over the cutting blades whenever you are not actually drilling a hole.
Actual ice auger mounts are fairly easy to find at retail. Look through sporting goods stores, and catalogs that specialize in ATV and snowmobile accessories.
Rick Johnson has had good luck creating auger cradles out of rubber V blocks “that mount on a boat trailer,” he says, “the thing you winch the front of the boat up against. They cost about two bucks apiece, and you can use two on one side and one on the other side, and it makes a good system, along with bungee cords.”
(In other words, two on one side to balance the power head, and one on the other side to support the auger flighting. See the photos and it will make sense.)

Drive Slowly
The rewards are great when you get all your gear elevated and secured to racks. Less jarring of your Vexilar and other delicate pieces like quality graphite rods, as you move from spot to spot, largely because you take advantage of the machine’s suspension. That quality auger stays in top shape, year after year, and remains at the ready as you cut enough holes to hunt down fish.

An elevated Fish Trap is convenient to work from, allowing you to grab gear and stash other gear, as you fish quickly outside, wearing your Ice Armor suit.

One thing to say goodbye to, though, is your desire to drive like a maniac across the ice. No more X Games. You are the little old lady driving to church now. The farther back your rack extends, thanks to the laws of physics, the more this applies.

In extreme examples, as you go over snow banks and other bumps, it’s possible to catapult your gear right out of the rack, explains Rick. We won’t get into how he knows this for a fact. You’re trying to make your life simpler, more efficient, and easier, so you don’t need that.



Special Offer: Have Rick Make Your Rack
As long as you can get your machine to Rick Johnson’s northern Minnesota workshop (near the town of Big Fork), sometime other than ice-fishing season, and can leave it with him for a couple weeks, you can have your elevated rack system built by the guy who pioneered the concept. If you live fairly close (or are willing to trailer from wherever you do live) contact Rick at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .