Ice fishing (fail) and the coolest home bar I've ever seen

[Strychnine]

Went to the "Chain o' Lakes" on Fox river (Lake Catherine, to be specific) in Antioch, IL for an ice fishing derby and failed miserably.

While it was -7*F Saturday morning it has not been overly cold all winter up there and there were still some spots of open water ~500yds out. Combine that with some environmental crap (local gov killing off a species of plant in the water) and we caught absolutely nothing this year.

I'm not sure I've ever been this cold. I've seen colder on a thermometer but it was always while doing active things. Standing still in a 20+mph wind is retarded. I'm not sure why people do this.

I had a canned beer start to freeze and get slushy before I could drink all of it, and the red solo cups of keg beer... well even a high ABV IPA cant resist the freezing power of that damn wind.















What do you do when you don't catch shit? Play games.







We even had a camera to look under the ice... and didnt see shit.





Wait, I lied. We did see a fish. It was dead and frozen under 6" of ice.

[Strychnine]

And on to the bar. This is my friend's uncle's basement. He does custom woodworking (mostly floors) and craftsman type stuff up there for a lot of big name people and decided he needed something cool for himself. He built all of this.










This is a very rare 1940's "National" shuffleboard table that's 22 ft long, 2 ft wide, solid maple weighing 700 lbs and he restored it himself. Rather than damage the table, to get it into the basement he actually cut down trees on the property and went in through a window.
Over 500 hours of sanding and varnishing went into the resto.





The bartop is all hand cut and took 3 weeks of work every evening when he got home.





Then when you're nice and toasty you can go to the entry way and try to climb the rope up to a loft. His 7 yr old daughter looked like a monkey going up this thing. All we could do was swing into each other like retards.







Did I mention that it was fucking freezing out there and there was zero payoff?

[BradM]

That basement is the shit!

[SEB]

WOW! Now that is what I call a MANCAVE!!!

[crapstang]

WOW! Now that is what I call a MANCAVE!!!

[03trubluGT]

Then when you're nice and toasty you can go to the entry way and try to climb the rope up to a loft. His 7 yr old daughter looked like a monkey going up this thing. All we could do was swing into each other like retards.

Don't let some liberal CPS worker see that and think that a child was endangered....

[Mysticcobrakilla]

Fuck a bunch of the frozen shit but I do like the rest of pics/story

[mikec]

That is definitely a kick ass game room.

Matt, put the badge down man! lol

[03trubluGT]

That is definitely a kick ass game room.

Matt, put the badge down man! lol

I had my FTP hat on when I posted that!

[mikec]

I had my FTP hat on when I posted that!

Lmao! Well... ok....

crazy ass cracka!

[bigmuskie]

And to think it all started with a neon sign to point the way to the bathroom down the hall.

That place is seriously kick ass, would put most public bars to shame.

[UserX]

the rope is cool.

[Ratt]

the rope is cool.

No shit, my kids are gonna get something cool like that. If they don't like it, well...more fun for me!

[JimD]

That mancave is awesome!

[VaderTT]

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