BROOKINGS – “Looking for an easier way to ice fish?” 

For those winter anglers who are, one go-to-guy is Kent Miller of rural Brookings: he’s the inventor, builder and distributor of the Ultimate Outdoor Vehicle. He and his wife, Heather Solberg, are co-owners of Miller Design & Manufacturing, a company they operate out of their acreage in rural Brookings.

The UOV is a tracked all-terrain amphibious vehicle with a flat bottom. It measures 100 inches long and 58 inches wide. It’s powered by a 19-horsepower engine with hydrostatic transaxles. It’s billed as being “great for ice fishing, waterfowl hunting and open water fishing.”

Miller explained that the hydrostatic transaxles allow each side of the UOV “to move independently. You’re not braking to turn, not applying the brakes to turn. You can do a perfect doughnut, just like a skid-steer or a zero-turn lawnmower.”

“It’s primary means is ice fishing, but it’s also an all-season vehicle,” he added. “You can use it for waterfowl hunting. It goes through mud. You can use it for (other) fishing, because it does float just like a boat.”

“I really came up with the idea about 3 1/2 years ago,” Miller said, as to the genesis of his invention. “I went fishing with my father-in-law and brother-in-law. It was kind of early season, late December. We hadn’t had a lot of cold weather leading up to it. So my brother-in-law came in and saw the ice fishing gear. We loaded the stuff and humped it down through the deep snow and got everything set up. Well, the fish aren’t biting in that area, so let’s move the whole caboodle.

“(My father-in-law) had kind of a bum knee at that point. He hadn’t had knee replacement surgery yet; so he’s hobbling around out there and it’s slippery out there. There’s got to be an easier way of doing ice fishing. It kind of takes the fun out of it. At the end of the day, you’re super tired.”

Engineer, inventor

Miller has a history of building tracked vehicles. He started in the fashion of necessity being the mother of invention. 

About 10 years ago, he built his first tracked vehicle to clear snow on his acreage. He still uses it today: he christened it “the snow dozer.”

This spring following a five-year project, he finished building “a much larger  tracked vehicle for a gentleman who is paralyzed from the armpits down: 35 horsepower diesel, full hydrostatic and it’s radio-controlled. He’s got a control panel mounted to his wheelchair.”

Miller graduated from South Dakota State University in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering.  In accordance with South Dakota state law, he has a license to sell boats and vehicles.  

“We are an official boat dealer and also a vehicle dealership. You have to have an office, you have to have liability insurance, a whole long laundry list of things you have to have before you can even sell these,” he explained.

Miller builds the UOVs on-site one at a time and presently is building two more. He has stockpiled needed parts. The longest lead-time is demanded by the rubber tracks, which he has to import from China.

“I do all the welding, all the assembly of it,” he said of his one-man assembly line. At present, he’s looking to UOV orders for fall. His wife does all the administrative work: marketing, advertising, and maintaining the website.

Both Miller and his wife hold down other full-time jobs. He works at Daktronics; she works at SDSU. Their work on and marketing of the UOVs is done evenings and weekends.

Knows it floats

A key factor in the UOV’s floatability is its pounds per square inch, Miller explained.  An average human walking exerts about 6 lbs psi; a fully-loaded UOV exerts about 2 pounds psi.

“So when you‘re on ice, it would take a lot to really break through,” he added. “But if you break through, you’re going to sit there and float. We know it floats, because we’ve tried it.” 

An empty UOV weighs about 850 pounds.

“It’s ideal for two people,” Solberg said.  “But you can haul three and up to four. We’ve got two small girls (5 and 8),  and the four of us have gone fishing in it. There’s benches on the sides. 

“The way he designed it, when you’re set up you can open the inboard hatches. You can drill right through it; you drop your line in and you’re ready to fish,” Solberg said.

“We had my dad out for a weekend and took him out on the ice. He climbed in onshore and climbed back out when we had finished fishing. It’s really comfortable – it’s set up to be comfortable, set up to be convenient.”

And it can be heated.  

“When you’re driving, the air from the engine comes through and warms the inside,” Miller explained. “That kind of warms everything up. Then you get out there and things start to cool off, there’s a propane tank, an optional accessory.  You can run a Little Buddy heater.”

More information about the Ultimate Outdoor Vehicle can be found at ultimateoutdoorvehicle.com.

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.