Bob House

[KBoater]

Last night I was at a party with a group from the mid west. They had never heard of a BOB House. This is from Minnesota and Michigan folks and call it a "fish house". So, is Bob House a NH, or New England name? Where did the name come from? I know that is what I always called them :confused:

[upthesaukee]

When I first saw your post, I thought "that's what happens when you don't get the shack off the ice in time...it becomes a bob house". So I searched google for "bobhouse" and got the following on answers.com :

bobhouse
A bobhouse or ice shanty is a small, portable shed placed on a frozen lake to provide shelter during ice fishing (http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Ice+fishing&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1). They can be as cheap as a plastic tarp draped over a frame of two-by-fours, or as expensive as a small RV (http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Recreational+vehicle&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1) or recreational vehicle.

In northern climates, bobhouses are the center of a large, often humorous, folklore. Fishermen often decorate their bobhouses in humorous ways (toilets are a popular joke addition), while others studiously work on ways to make their bobhouses more comfortable and efficient. Much of the folklore involves the inherent danger of erecting a structure atop a frozen pond. In New England (http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=New+England&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1), the saying goes that every pond and lake has at least one bobhouse on the bottom (at least one snowmobile (http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?method=4&dsid=2222&dekey=Snowmobile&gwp=8&curtab=2222_1), too).

Many northern communities have developed bodies of laws about the operation of bobhouses - frequently including dates by which they must be removed, even if the ice can still hold them.


http://www.gurunet.com/content/img/wikipedia.gif This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html). It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Bobhouse" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobhouse).





The wikipedia article didn't give any further info., but I thought the line about at least one on the bottom was kinda neat!

[KBoater]

Thanks upthesaukee.
Your info. helped me prove that it in fact is a real name. I emailed it on to my disbelieving friends.
I thought that maybe it was named after the "bob" used at the end of a fishing line.