Tinkering in the basement today and have Life Below Zero on the DVR, so episodes are a mix of original air dates. That bring said, this topic may have come up here before and I missed it along the way.

Anyway, here's Chip Hailstone and family plowing ice upriver and I'm looking at the bow and do I see what I think I see? Is this an ice cutter? If so, is it permanent, or something he bolts on come iceup?

Yes, old timer I hunted with had one on his duck boat

Was it permanently mounted?

Yep, welded on, worked good to.
The boat was homemade, all welded plate aluminum, and weighed about twice as much as a standard one.
Bow and keel were reinforced,
I don't kmow how it would be on a riveted hull

Interesting Chukar.

But now I'm confused. Towards the end of this episode, he beaches the boat and I'm looking at a bow eye. What happened to the ice cutter? Possibly a bolt on feature?

Maybe a different boat ??

nope, same bow registration numbers

Likely filmed at different times and pieced together. And if you buy a new boat and get rid of the old one, I thing the numbers transfer to the new boat.

Maybe Caribou will come on the forums and tell us. Hope so...

OTG

Same boat, No alteration

In the first picture, what appears to be a 'cut out' is the black rope in the bow eye. Looking closely you can see the rope going up along side the bow.




Charlie

I've never watched the show.

Seems to me, if you're going to break much ice, the front of the boat is going to need to ride up on top of it. The weight of the boat moving forward would push it down and break the ice. Can't really tell, looks like a heavy V-bottom boat, no idea what for horsepower?

But a single row of saw teeth on the front of a boat wouldn't amount to squat as far as cutting ice. If anything, in thicker ice it'd stop the boat and hold you up.

Give or take how thick was the ice he's busting through?

Ah . . . mystery solved. Need to get my eyes checked. Though now I'm disappointed. Was really hoping that was an ice cutter on the bow.

I run riveted Alumacraft V-bows and am fairly careful about cutting ice. Haven't seen any damage.

Chukar's post was interesting. Bet the fella who rigged that up had some interesting stories about late season duck hunts.

Interesting.

From my limited experience, I switch from the jon boat to the V-bow for busting ice. And I take it slow.

Perhaps instead of teeth on the leading edge of a bow plate, one had a "sword-like" structure that would more fracture ice.