Car-top duck boat suggestions???

B

Brian Hiller

Member
It's been a while since I have had the time to check in here but I couldn't think of a better place to ask this question. I am thinking about getting a small craft for hunting some the nearby ponds and rivers that are not very accessible by boat and trailer and was hoping to get a better handle on what the options are out there. My criteria are that the craft will have to be stable enough to carry me, a dog, a few decoys, and possibly another passenger; it needs to be light enough that I can put on top of a 4-Runner or similar vehicle by myself without injury; it also needs to be able to handle being put on top of said vehicle; preferably under or around $1000.

So far, my list of possibles includes a 12 foot jon boat and I'm looking for other options that won't kill the bank account.

Let me know what you guys think.

Brian
 
I know alot of guys curse canoes, but IMHO a good canoe will carry the load you described and be easier to put on and take off your vehicle by yourself (when you are inclined to do so) There are tippy canoes and there are stable canoes. Get something with a wide beam and a flat bottom. Any 12 foot John would be overloaded with 2 guys, dog, guns, deeks, etc.

Chuck
 
I don't think you can beat a canoe. If you stay away from the "solo" canoes and get something in the 16-17 foot range with 35" or more of beam, you should have no problem carrying two hunters, a lab, and a couple dozen decoys. Such a boat will also be small enough that you can portage and cartop it solo.

If you want to keep under $1000 and keep the weight below about 80 pounds, you're going to need to look at used canoes, but there are tons of them out there. You should be able to find a good used fiberglass or royalex canoe for well under a grand. Plastic boats will be cheaper, and even under $1000 new, but are a lot heavier. Some folks like aluminum canoes, and I've spent a lot of time in them, but I'll never buy another one.

One person can hunt out of a canoe, or you can have the stern paddler paddle and the bow paddler shoot. Frankly, it's better for accessing spots you will hunt from shore or wading. You can also add (although there really is no reason to) a small electric trolling motor if you want.

I fish out of small jon boats a bit, and find them less seaworthy than similarly sized canoes. (This may just reflect a life lived in canoe country and a lot of time spent in canoes over the past 35 years . . . . .)
 
You should look into a Momarsh Fatboy DP or the boats by Mallard Marine. Both can be paddled by kayak paddles and while they are one person boats, they hide a lot better than a canoe...

Cabelas sells the Momarsh DP now in it's waterfowl catalog with a blind for $2000, but I think you can get them much cheaper directly from Momarsh or find one used.
 
Hey Jeff

I like the way you think...but what's your dislike for aluninum canoes?

Chuck
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Thanks Chuck. I think we were posting at the same time. Aluminum canoes are hot in the summer, cold in the winter, give you a wet ass in the rain, stick like glue when dragged over rocks or a beaver dam, and make too damn much noise.

I also have the advantage of living about an hour from Old Town Canoe, which has a great factory store and an annual factory sale with discount canoes, so Royalex canoe supply around here is pretty well saturated and prices are low.

Aluminum canoes are FANTASTIC for getting them cheap used, then dragging behind a snowmobile to stash at a remote hike-in trout pond where they'll be used a couple of times a year. They are also damn near indestructible, and I've paddled hundreds of miles in them, including a ton of scout and camp trips when I was a kid. But if I have a choice, I'll take Royalex or fiberglass any day.
 
I can't speak for Jeff but I can tell you about my own experience with aluminum canoes.

I own both an aluminum canoe and a Royalex canoe. The aluminum canoe is a great summer canoe on flat water but in hunting season it is both cold and noisy. It is also unforgiving when you hit a sharp rock in a fast flowing river. Where a composite, glass or plastic canoe will flex the metal tends to gouge or cut. My aluminum canoe is also heavier than my "plastic" one even though it is a foot shorter. The aluminum canoe has large bouyancy chambers in the front and back where my "plastic" canoe has none since the entire canoe is bouyant due to the foam core sandwich of the material.

I have also owned a fibreglass canoe and found the characteristics to be somewhere in the middle. After many years of service it imploded in a "whirlpool" on the Magnetawan River. Fortunately no one was in it.

My "plastic" canoe is a moderately expensive model, chosen for its durability, comfort, weight and ease of paddling. I made the choice based on a lifetime of owning canoes made of various materials. If weight was my primary concern I would have ordered my canoe in Kevlar/Spectra.
 
Thanks for the input so far guys. I love canoes but I wonder about the stability with a lab not experienced in them and the possibility of taking my young sons out with me. May just have to change my plans for hunting on those days I guess. How portable are the Fatboy, Marsh Rat, or Mallard type sneak boats, can they be loaded on top of a SUV with racks on it?
 
Wow....That looks like a great deal on the DP package. Only way to get it cheaper is to go pick it up from Ira if you happened to be passing through. Brian, you can order that and have it shipped to the East Hartford store and not have to deal with the trucker if it shows up damaged.
 
If weight was my primary concern I would have ordered my canoe in Kevlar/Spectra.
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Agreed, but you won't find a Kevlar canoe for under $1,000, even used. Also, Royalex is much more tolerant of abuse than either fiberglass or Kevlar. I've got a 25+ year old Royalex Mad River Explorer that has been wrapped around a rock in Class 3 rapids and crushed under a load of ice and snow when I left it in the woods over the winter at a remote pond. With new gunwales to replace the broken ones, it was perfectly serviceable after both events, and is still my "goto" duck hunting canoe, with a fetching new paint job of Krylon spray paint in olive, brown and tan.
 
While I have no personal experience with the Fatboy, I bet you could get it up on top of your truck.... especially if you got one of those kayak racks with the wheels which allows you to "roll" the boat on top of your truck.

I would suggest starting a new post entitled "Momarsh Fatboy DP Questions" on this site and hopefully anyone who owns one will answer your questions. Maybe one of them will even be nice enough to speak with you on the phone about the boats.

This site is great for asking questions & getting firsthand advice. I post a lot asking a particular question, usually get several responses and typically take the one which works best for me. You cant beat it!

Good luck!
 
With the exception of the canoe, none of the others mentioned are "easily" put on top of a truck without a "helper". With a cowling and cockpit, the center of gravity is moved in on these boats making them hard to pick up and turn over to put on top of a vehicle. To help with this, I purchased a Fulton Canoe Caddy that makes this task still tediuos but not impossible. I finally got tired of using the fulton and built a carrier in the back of the pick up bed for this season. Car topping my boat (Hoefgen Duck Boat), made it so I didn't want to use this boat as much as it was a royal pain to get op top of the truck everytime I wanted to go. This is what it became:

1. Get baot off of garage wall and carry over to pick up
2. Put one end of boat on top of canoe caddy. Pick up other end and place on top of truck. Ties down.
3. Get to hunting spot and remove from top of truck.
4. Get done hunting and put back up on top of truck.
5. Get home and put back on garage wall.

So each time I wanted to hunt I had to get this boat either on or off of the truck 4 times. I'd get a canoe or carry the boat some other way than on top of the truck. Something to think about.

Mark W
 
Brian, check out Ron Chapman Piroques,he has one called the "King", I purchased one and love it,It weighs about 70-75 lbs check it out,Hope this helps Brian Rippelmeyer
 
Mark, what you described is why my hunting kayak was on the truck nearly year round.... I did take it off after the hunting season, until the training season started in early spring.....Made it easy to find my truck in a parking lot too!
 
Mark, what you described is why my hunting kayak was on the truck nearly year round.... I did take it off after the hunting season, until the training season started in early spring.....Made it easy to find my truck in a parking lot too!
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Unfortunately my truck won't fit in the garage and as we have had a bunch of hooligans vandalizing homes and vehicles around the neighborhood the past year or so, I can't leave a boat on top of the truck in the driveway. Otherwise I like your thinking.

Mark W
 
Thanks for the input so far guys. I love canoes but I wonder about the stability with a lab not experienced in them and the possibility of taking my young sons out with me. May just have to change my plans for hunting on those days I guess. How portable are the Fatboy, Marsh Rat, or Mallard type sneak boats, can they be loaded on top of a SUV with racks on it?
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I've owned a Fatboy and while I loved the boat for many reasons, it's weight was not one of them. I've "truck topped" (bed cap) but more often than not I'd just slide it in the bed with the tailgate down. The boat goes over 100lbs+ and for me, topping wasn't something I wanted to do with any regularity. Great boat for a lot of reasons but weight was the reason I let it go. For the places I needed it, the weight was too big a factor.

Ryan
 
Brian, I too am going to suggest a canoe. I wrote this up back in 99 when we were all a bit younger. Still love the canoe and my new pup who is huge rides in it fine. I will also offer to let you borrow and play with it for a weekend while it's still warm. you've been to the house before to pick up the woodcock so I know it's within reach.

Best,
Scott

from 99:

I love my canoe and have spent hundreds of hours fishing and accessing hunting spots with it. Jump shooting streams with a canoe, ranks up there as one of my favorite ways of duck hunting. My 80 pound lab is totally at home in it, able to launch and come back in over the side on commend (I do kneel on the floor and help him in with support on the back of his neck). Actually I've had as many as three canoes at once, all for different purposes. For duck hunting you need what I call a work boat. Defined as being very stable and forgiving. Typical attributes are having a fairly flat bottom, a keel for tracking and stability, high free-board, lots of flotation, and having some weight of its own to minimize reactions to shifts in its load.

The canoe I have owned and primarily used for the last 17 years is an inexpensive 15-ft Great Canadian. My fifteen-year-old daughter has been joining me since she was probably 6 and the lab since he was 13 weeks old or so. In all this time I have never felt close to losing it (swamping or tipping over). I would not recommend inexperienced people taking the canoe out into fast moving water, or large bodies of water, or in cold weather without a support boat manned by an experienced crew. On the other hand in waters you can stand up in and temperatures that won't kill you in five minutes I would say "have fun".

Scott
 
The DP is listed at 90#. with the blind and stuff on it'll be just over 100#. the bigger question is, once it's off the vehicle, how far do you need to portage it to get it to the water? You are looking at minimum, 3 trips at each end of the hunt from the vehicle to the launch point. that will get old really quick if it's more than 30ft unless there is snow on the ground and downhill both ways.
 
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