Battery Build with Plans

Battery Build with Plans

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You could always travel to parts of Canada where it is legal...

Digging up these old plans has unearthed some fascinating stuff for me. Let me tell you, the magazine Forest and Stream from the late 1800s and early 1900s is amazingly interesting. My gosh what a resource it must have been to hunters prior to most forms of mass communication we take for granted today. There are all kinds of information about hunting prior to the Migratory Bird Treaty including discussion of individual state's laws attempt to protect wildlife. One thing I'll mention is there was a lot more guiding going on back then that I realized. Obviously, market hunting was widespread, but guiding clients was much more prevalent than I envisioned based upon ads and articles. Also, the ads about using 3 hp motors to get places to find ducks is almost humorous given where we are today, yet there they were, looking for any technological advantage. As a whole we duck hunters haven't changed a bit. Have we?
 
Rick Pierce said:
I know it's illegal, but man...I would love to lay out in a battery with 300-400 decoys around....
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Didn't someone (Steve Sutton? Worth?) have a long post on here with photos of a battery or sink box hunt in Nova Scotia or maybe New Brunswick? I'm thinking in my early days on here, so maybe ~15 years ago. I tried a quick search and could not find it.
 
Yup I went on that hunt.....I'll dig up some pictures....work has blocked smugmug (can you believe that nonsense???)
 
I've been active on an other thread and I just posted a couple of pictures of a sink box that is used on the Lac St. Pierre in Quebec. I've counted as many as 17 rigs on the lake. The pictures on the other thread is of a new sink box totally fabricated in metal. It is a piece of art. I hunted out his last rig. It's 23' long and tended by a big 22' Stanley Pulsecraft. The apparatus on the back of the Pulsecraft hooks into a big eye on the end of the sink box and lifts the front of the boat out of the water for towing. The lake is ~30 km long and they move those rigs all over the lake. These pics are from a December Goldeneye hunt just before freeze.... If you ever get a chance -- go!

Scott
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Cranking down the box
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There it was ... Gone!
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Scott

How have you not been on the forum before now?. You fit right in. The picture of the box being lowered it most interesting. I have not seen that before. Not sure if I missed it in the literature I've read or you guys engineered a better mouse trap, but I can see how that set-up would be effective and more easily moved than other systems.
 
I retired I guess. Well I'm retired but still working. There is very little information out there on the sink boxes. The the pictures I posted here: https://duckboats.net/community/thr...aa-broadbill-or-mlb-wigeon.354922/post-359737 is probable one of the most advanced sink boxes built. The owner has built many and has more than 30 years experience running them. Here is a closeup of the mechanism for mounting the box.
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There is a flange the box sits in and is hinged so the box can lay on its side when not in use. The keeps water out of the box. The bottom of the boxes are all painted orange so you can see them when you're boating. I you look closely at the pictures on the other thread you can see a navigation light mounted to the box - this light runs at night.

In the well you can see a beige door. This door is mounted on a hinge the front end of the boat on the underside. Not sure if I'm describing it well...The door closes off the well to keep water from coming up through the when the boats under tow. When the box is mounted in the well, the flanges locked in place with 2 tabs... you can see the tabs on either side of the boat just inside of the spray skirt. They are the shape of a keyhole. Then you just screw it down to submerge the box.

I've only hunted out a sink box only once. The boat sits a couple of inches about the water. It's very comfortable.... much better than a layout where your flat on our back laying on that cold water. When it get rough you need to raise the spray skirt, the waves roll over the boat, but you stay perfectly dry. Anyways, that's all I know about them.

Scott
 
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I was sea sick but you can see the step down of the sides of this box. A concrete five gallon bucket was attached to the bottom of the box and sand bags added to the footwell, or taken out, depending on the weight of the person inside.

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A Nova Scotia sink box. I know I have other pictures of the box out of the water and being deployed but I will have to find them.

The pictures also show the sides being kept down by large rocks. We had strings of decoys attached to the box as well that ran out away from the box. It was a very cool experience but there was a lot that went into deploying and recovering the box.
 
Scott

Thanks for the explanation. Looking at the pictures I was wondering how the box was locked down and then your words made it clear. I never would have even noticed the flap had you not pointed it out, but I can see it would be required to tow. I can tell that design comes from someone with real-world sinkbox experience. Surely those features were either passed down or lessons learned from earlier models. Great stuff. Thanks for sharing.
 
Scott

What is the hull of the sinkbox made of. I think I see welds so I'm guessing steel or aluminum. Any idea of its weight?
 
Scott

Somehow this old video showed up in my YouTube feed. Looks like it might be the same rig you pictured above.

 
Hey Eric,

That is a different crew. I did a tour on the lake a couple of years ago and I counted 17 setups. He says sink box hunting is cold, but it's much better than a layout. In a layout you laying flat on you back on the water and it just sucks the heat from you. In a sink box ,it can be - 5 (°C), but your down in water and the water is a few degrees above 0. You're wind and sitting on a nice piece of foam. You can stand up and get the blood flowing. Much more comfortable than a layout when it's cold.
 
Scott

It probably is a bit more like pit blind hunting crossed with layout hunting. Open water divers yet sitting in a metal dumpster, albeit smaller.
 
About 20 years ago, I saw this modified battery design which met the requirements for legal hunting. It was essentially a battery with a small raised box that sat up and was high enough to be legal. An old man in Tarboro, NC had it. I think he modified an old battery to make it. We called it a "wigeon box." I almost borrowed it to build a replica. He was willing to let me, but I was in college and didn't have a great space to actually do the build.
 
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