Why are they called bobhouses?
 

ice shanty, ice house, bobhouse. Why bobhouse??

I particularly like the line that is bolded:

What causes this great housing increase? Bob houses! These portable “shanties,” as they are called by those in the know, are wheeled or pushed onto ice-covered bodies of water by die hard fisherman and their friends and followers each winter. No one knows for sure where bob houses got their name. There are various theories: they could be named for the bobsleds that some used to bring their shacks out onto the ponds, or because “bob” is an old fashioned term for short or small (as in bobtail or bobbed hair), or because your shanty will be bobbing in the water if you leave it out on a lake too long.

From: http://blog.verani.com/bob-houses-hampshire-tradition/

They thought "Robert" was too formal. :D

LOL. Opened this thread to post this same thing :)

I was about to ask that same question..MooseMan beat me to it. Who the hell is BOB...I know there is an answer..:D :D NB

Bobbing is a term used for "jigging" the bait or lure or combination of both up and down to entice the fish to bite. Most bobhouse have one or several trapdoors in the base that can be lifted to access the ice underneath.
My bobhouse has two hatches that can be openned for bobbing(old term) or Jigging(new term). When the weather is to nasty to fish outside with tip-ups, one can always fish inside where it is warm. And I supose on those really slow days you can throw a couple apples in the hole and Bob for apples.:)

Nooooooo.....It's because when they don;t get them off the ice in time and they finally go in the drink they just Bob around until someone hits one with a boat. Like I did on NewFound a few years ago.....:rolleye2::D

Back in the day the fisherman ventured far out onto the frozen tundra of lake ice not realizing that they were too far out to look for a tree to relieve themselves when nature called. So with necessity as the mother of invention, enter a fisherman guy named...that's right - Bob.
Bob had been thrown out of his house by his drunk wife. Out of spite to her, he took with him their outhouse and fishing gear. Well as things go Bob ended up sleeping in the outhouse for some time.
With ice fishing season being his favorite, one cold morning Bob like the other ice fisherman looking for the trophy was fishing too far out on the lake and had consumed too much Beer and needed relief. He couldn't stagger the distance to some privacy to relieve himself so he went where he could- except it was 10 degrees with a wind chill of 5 below. With one gust of wind Bobs exposed package froze. Enter the necessity; while thawing out his unit, Bob came up with the brilliant idea of dragging his outhouse out onto the lake and using it as needed.
Well that isn't the end of the story, other fishermen hearing of Bobs story of his frozen package, too dragged their outhouses out on the lake in order not to freeze off theirs as well!
With evolution, the generations of fishermen on the ice stopped coming out of their outhouses on the lake and in time learned that the same hole in the outhouse floor can be used for other things... like fishing...and as a tribute to its inventor they named this evolved outhouse, you guessed it..."BOBhouse".

Back in the day the fisherman ventured far out onto the frozen tundra of lake ice not realizing that they were too far out to look for a tree to relieve themselves when nature called. So with necessity as the mother of invention, enter a fisherman guy named...that's right - Bob.
Bob had been thrown out of his house by his drunk wife. Out of spite to her, he took with him their outhouse and fishing gear. Well as things go Bob ended up sleeping in the outhouse for some time.
With ice fishing season being his favorite, one cold morning Bob like the other ice fisherman looking for the trophy was fishing too far out on the lake and had consumed too much Beer and needed relief. He couldn't stagger the distance to some privacy to relieve himself so he went where he could- except it was 10 degrees with a wind chill of 5 below. With one gust of wind Bobs exposed package froze. Enter the necessity; while thawing out his unit, Bob came up with the brilliant idea of dragging his outhouse out onto the lake and using it as needed.
Well that isn't the end of the story, other fishermen hearing of Bobs story of his frozen package, too dragged their outhouses out on the lake in order not to freeze off theirs as well!
With evolution, the generations of fishermen on the ice stopped coming out of their outhouses on the lake and in time learned that the same hole in the outhouse floor can be used for other things... like fishing...and as a tribute to its inventor they named this evolved outhouse, you guessed it..."BOBhouse".

I know right? I went out to one of the Bob houses yesterday to get some prime rib but they said only the bar was open......;):D

bobhouse
 

If they called it a Johnhouse, there would be other things in the pristine waters of NH. :eek:

Johnhouse
 

...or a Cathouse!!:laugh::laugh:

Real Bobbing House
 

This is why they are called BOB HOUSES

NO bclaker, it's because they didn't want to call them FLL houses!! :laugh:



Terry
_________________________

They called this one an "Ice House".

I wonder how thick the ice is that the two guys are standing on?

This picture is in this weeks The Granite State News:

One of the early ice fisherman always took his bobtail cat with him. On his bobsled.

I remember him
 

Bob Roberts was his name...his wife Bobbie wore her hair in a.......wait for it........bob style hairdo.

I was told that the first one was built by Robert Houseman.
He wanted to identify it as his by putting his name on it.
Due to the size limitations, dimensionally, of the structure,
Robert Houseman = BOB HOUSE. :D

And Bob's your Uncle
 

From the great down under

Some guy named Bob invented this
 

just after he built the first Bob House... Man is a genius!


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