Plants for Grassing Sneakboxes (Pics)

Eric Patterson

Eric Patterson

Moderator
Staff member
Native vegetation is my camo of choice. There are some good commercial products but I prefer something that grows locally and can be cut for FREE. I have tried a variety of grasses over the years to camo my sneakboats. Some of which are ornamental grasses like Miscanthus and Pennisetum, both outstanding. I have planted the back slope of my yard with these and cut them each fall to camo boats and blinds.

H269-17.jpg

Pennisetum

52301_1024x1024.jpg

Miscanthus

River cane, not to be confused with bamboo, is a good camo too but it is becoming scarce. I recently read an article that says 98% of what we once had is gone. I believe it. Chinese Privet has all but wiped it out in my area. The only thick stands left around here are those on the banks of the TN River. I like to drive and carry a trailer to haul the harvest so river cane is seldom used these days. Oak branches still holding their leaves work very well for breaking up a boat's or blind's outline but oak limbs don't trailer at highway speeds very well. Cane and ornamental grasses excel in durability, easily making an entire season. Broom sedge is another native grass that lends itself for camo. It is usually found in open fields and along highways.

DSCF9450.JPG

River Cane

Brome_Sedge_Grass__24717.1501514993.1280.1280__10420.1514003330.jpg

Broom Sedge

In recent years I think I may have discovered the ultimate native (okay, invasive) harvestable camo. I'm taking about Sericea Lespedeza. It may look like a soft stemmed plant too weak to withstand the demands of camo for a trailer boat, but it is not. It is surprisingly tough. In the fall when it dries out it turns brown and the stems and fine branches closely resemble woody vegetation rather than a grass. As such it blends in absolutely amazingly on river banks, tree lines, and bottom lands. Although I haven't tried it I believe it would easily last multiple seasons between re-camoing. Until recently I did not know it was used agriculturally for livestock feed and that you can buy seed to grow it. In the future I can see dedicating a plot of land at the hunting property to grow this nearly perfect camo.


sericea_lespedeza01.jpg


Sericea Lespedeza

Sericea%2520Lespedeza.JPG


Sericea Lespedeza


View attachment Img_0438.jpg
Boat covered with Sericea Lespedeza



Eric Patterson
p.s. Photos shamelessly grabbed from google images.
 
Last edited:
This is really interesting Eric, seeing the different types of grasses you have available. Here in New Jersey we have some salt and brackish grasses that work well, but I have also used fountain grass (not sure if that's the same as one you described) and is really good cover and durable. I have always cut mine in the spring and left it up in the winter, and because of that I have to store it in the attic for the summer, which I don't like doing, so I haven't saved it for several years.
 
Here in NW TN, oak is king as long as you cut it early enough. It is best to cover with a tarp before trailering to preserve as many leaves as possible. We have used broom sedge a lot to fill in holes on our blind and also to brush around our shooting holes. One thing that we have started to use a lot more is vines. I'm not sure of the exact species, I know it's not one of the poisonous varieties and it's not Virginia Creeper, but it seems to grow over a lot of the buck brush and trees in our bottom land. We pull it off and stuff it in the holes of our brush and it makes an excellent filler. Several permanent blinds even try to start honey suckle, etc. to grow around their blinds so that it will be a permanent camo job. I will have to look for that lespedeza this fall.

Great topic!
 
Lespedeza is excellent for quail cover and food.
Great info Eric, I've used the river cane sometimes and on the permanent blind I have logs and limbs all over it to break the shape up and make it look more natural.
 
In coastal NJ the natural cover is almost exclusively spartina. I like to brush up my blind with material on hand to blend in with the color and height, but last year after the ice and snow I had to get resourceful. I have a small field of warm season grasses behind my office with a good amount of broom sedge so I would cut and bag some at lunch and carry it out. Otherwise there would have been nothing and it is hard to hide in flattened spartina
 
On the coast, a gunning skiff covered in rock weed looks an awful lot like another half tide ledge.

Inland, I use mostly rice, but also cat tail, bullrushes, hemlock, oak--whatever matches the cover I am trying to hide in.
 
Phrags are not allowed to be used for blind bushing on any of our fed. or state hunting areas due to the invasiveness of plant. We have way to much of it in our wetlands. It will completely overtake wetland habitat and overwhelm any other wetland plant. I,ve actually seen it take root from blind bushing in a cut corn field. Don,t ever use it around a pond or litter from it will take seed and obliterate the pond in short order. All most impossible to kill the only thing that can be done is control it with herbicide and fire.
 
Last edited:
roy brewington said:
Phrags are not allowed to be used for blind bushing on any of our fed. or state hunting areas due to the invasiveness of plant. We have way to much of it in our wetlands. It will completely overtake wetland habitat and overwhelm any other wetland plant. I,ve actually seen it take root from blind bushing in a cut corn field. Don,t ever use it around a pond or litter from it will take seed and obliterate the pond in short order. All most impossible to kill the only thing that can be done is control it with herbicide and fire.
Click to expand...

I've got $100 says alligator weed and water primrose will kick phrags ass. In the world of invasives they are the baddest on the planet.
 
Eric Patterson said:
roy brewington said:
Phrags are not allowed to be used for blind bushing on any of our fed. or state hunting areas due to the invasiveness of plant. We have way to much of it in our wetlands. It will completely overtake wetland habitat and overwhelm any other wetland plant. I,ve actually seen it take root from blind bushing in a cut corn field. Don,t ever use it around a pond or litter from it will take seed and obliterate the pond in short order. All most impossible to kill the only thing that can be done is control it with herbicide and fire.
Click to expand...

I've got $100 says alligator weed and water primrose will kick phrags ass. In the world of invasives they are the baddest on the planet.
Click to expand...
The answer to your statement would surely end up with a ruined wetland, what ever the outcome!
 
Roy, you are correct. I've said it before but I'll say it again. I've lost for more places to hunt to invasive vegetation than any other cause.
 
Last edited:
keep spreading the phrag, it just means more days on the marsh master for me!

its all over up here too which sucks, but i love getting paid to be in the marsh. our contracts are usually multi-year so i get to spray/mow repeat and always keep an open eye out for birds.

water chesnut and multifloral rose are miserable too. Im sure the PNW boys hate scotch broom and gorse.
 
Japanese knotweed in my experience is the worst cause its impossible to kill, reed canary grass has destroyed a lot of wetlands, along with purple loosestrife, then there is Himalyan blackberry,


As for the topic at hand, I've been tying bundles of manila or sisal rope and binding twine for camo. Its rugged, doesn't spread seeds or live plant material and is pretty cheap if you buy the big hay baling spools.
 
Chris, are you employed at the State or Federal level to do treatments? We had a Lake Michigan coastal marsh treated prior last year's season. I was surprised how thorough the effort was; easily 90 percent of stands gone. The year prior treatment we noticed tracks running in parallel through the invasive Phragmites sp. stands, which I assumed were done for area mapping purposes. Do you estimate surface area prior treatments, or just go in a treat?
 
Brad Bortner said:
Japanese knotweed in my experience is the worst cause its impossible to kill, reed canary grass has destroyed a lot of wetlands, along with purple loosestrife, then there is Himalyan blackberry,


As for the topic at hand, I've been tying bundles of manila or sisal rope and binding twine for camo. Its rugged, doesn't spread seeds or live plant material and is pretty cheap if you buy the big hay baling spools.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Brad!

I shortened a bunch of droppers and just finished using the ends, making sisal bundles to attach along the grassing rails to the waterline. I added a 1" wide solution died nylon webbing strap on my new blind panels just below the fabric tunnel TDB used to run the blind frame members through. The webbing was stitched-on 4" on center and brass grommets mounted to zip-tie the webbing onto the blind with time worn raffia, augmented with Scirpus sp. from the marshes we hunt in.
 
Last edited:
I work for a private company, which I prefer. Usually we can get a good map from google earth. Extract the acreage from that, calculate the amount of chem, then get out and spray. If you run a Raven system like we do for our DOT roadside spraying you can control rate, swathing, pressure etc. normally we just use a gun though.

Im a big fan of K.I.S.S. especially when operating a machine that if it breaks down needs basically another floating tank to tow it out. I blew up a drive shaft on a posi tilling a field that is in the middle of a swamp. we took the final drives apart and towed it out with the Marsh Master. thank god we own one. (i got to tear down the posi, pull the engine and replace the shaft too, being mechanically inclined sure does help ;)

it is way easier to treat phrag after mowing it, we either him it with a flail mower on a positrac or a roller chopper on the marsh master the winter before treatment then spray in the spring when the plants are short. easier to drive when its 2 feet tall not 10 feet. i would imagine that is what tracks are from.
 
I'll have to search for a marsh master. Initially, Steve and I thought a pontoon boat had run through all the invasive Phrag. stands, but the section between the pontoons was not impacted. When we stopped to consider how remote we were relative to ramps, it just didn't
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top