do boat blinds have any negative effects?

M

michael barnes

Active member
all the marsh around here is owned, so really the only way ill be able to hunt from my boat is by making a blind on it and grassing it. there are not really any tall cattails on the marsh, just low marsh grass, so when i pull my boat up close to the land, its going to be a large "hump", grassed or not. will that keep ducks from decoying?
 
Maybe, maybe not...depends on your ducks. I've had luck in similar situations by both hunting open water with a boat blind in no cover, AND sitting on the floor of a jon boat with no blind for low-flying divers.
 
Michael,
Give a try with visqueen (6 mil, translucent, construction plastic).
We use if for layout hunting a lot and it makes the boat vanish in the water.
Several years ago, there was a fella on the forum here who covered his Boston Whaler with visqueen. He said he had Woodies landing 6 feet from the boat and the birds never knew the hunters .....or the boat were there...until it was way too late for the birds. ;)
Lou
 
Hey Lou, do you just drape visqueen over the boat and let it float in the water to make it blend? Do you drape it into the cockpit? I know you have mentioned this before, but I was hoping you could share a little more with how you do this? I have not seen method used out here, but it sounds like it would make a lot of sense! Any pictures?
 
Sean,
Just drape it over the boat, providing access for the hunters to shoot. Use some clamps to hold it along the edge of the boat or blind and provide an extra piece (if necessary) to flap over the hunters to hide them a bit more. We let the edges drop into the water and tie some decoy line and weights onto that edge to hold it against the wind.
If you'd like, I can post some pictures of how we dress out the layout boat again.
Lou
 
if you could post a pic of it, id really appreciate it. sounds like a great idea.
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The negative effect of visqueen is that your boat will look like a pile of construction waste. Go with a conventional blind. Ask scott Farris to post pics of his 14'er with the flipboards.
 
OT- mr osier, what kind of shotgun is that in your avatar pic? thanks everyone for the comments.
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It is a Super Black Eagle - stupid name, but great gun.
 
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Michael,
We've been using the visqueen for over 20 years and it's like magic. We did some testing with our Whistler 2-man layout boat, with the boat covered but not the hunters. For this test, we were not coming up to shoot....merely laying there, not moving and watching the birds. With the hunters bodies exposed with green & brown camo....in a gray boat....the birds were flaring at about 15-20 yards. Yup, still killable. Then we covered up with visqueen and the birds were literally flying 2 feet over the top of our heads. They never knew the boat was there. Had another customer with one of our boats, covered with visqueen and some Buffy never saw the boat and on a crossing path, one bird ran into the boat, snapped it's neck and tumbled into the water.....dead. Not a shot fired on that one. ;)

This is one of our South Bay Scooters in our Reed Stripe Camo Pattern. Nice color & pattern for marsh hunting but not that good for layout shooting. So.........covered it with visqueen (same boat, same paint) and turned it into a real gunning tub. ;)
Also, some folks worry about the shadow under the boat. Take a look at all the shadows that are created in each wave.
Enjoy.
Lou

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that really disapears. my boat is quite a bit bigger and taller, but i am sure using the visqueen will surely hide it and make it less "blocky" than a grass blind. i bet if i put visqueen on the sides, and grassed the top, pulled up by the marsh, it would be deadly and very low profile.thanks for the pics!
tod, i have heard nothing but the best about benelli guns, and when i get a new auto, the SBE and SBE2 are at the top of the wish list.
 
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We hunt open water using boat blinds, sometime a mile+ from any shore line in 6"-3' of water. I posted a couple pics of our setup a while back.
Works great for divers. ON puddlers (mostly gadwalls, some teal, wigeon & a stray pintail here, no mallards to speak of) it works great on "new" birds, ok on slightly educated ones and hit/miss on educated birds. Just depends on the weather, the winds, the tides, how bad they want to be on that spot, etc... The key is to stay low as possible, break up your outline, be where the ducks want to be and have a good spread of decoys. SOmetimes that means putting out 8-10 dzn.

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I have done both, I wove catails into mesh, We even had a blue heron perch ontop of it. Looked great, But with no other high cover I have totally visqened a 17' jon boat and shot the heck out of the ducks
 
Since you asked about negative effects I will toss up a couple for your consideration.

Grassed blinds can become really heavy when they get wet in the rain. If there is enough grass to build up a lot of weight your boat can become quite top heavy. If you are in an area that will have many rainy hunting days you need to keep the amount of grass "thin" and the blind height low to the water.

Blinds with or without a wind block material can become sails in any decent amount of wind. This can make it hard to keep a boat in its place with out a couple of anchors. You will want to make a blind frame that collapses so that it does not influence the boat's behavior while motoring.
 
Blinds with or without a wind block material can become sails in any decent amount of wind.

Ray,

Glad you mentioned that, reminds me of a day hunting new water. My local area was all froze up so I drove to the southern part of the state to finish out the season. Predawn found me at the ramp and off I went. Motored into a back bay and set out the decoys. Snugged my flat bottom up against some downed timber and pulled up the Avery Quick set blind. I was all ready to hunt when I realized that in my haste I had left my shooting iron back in the truck. My normal routine when home is to leave my guns in the boat during the season but didn't want to do this when out of town.

So,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, I quickly untie the boat and head back to the ramp, not taking the time to lower the blind. Out of the bay I came rounding the corner onto the main body of water.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAA hold the phone boys and girls!!! Like a sail boat with out a centerboard or keel, I was up on one edge! I spun the back end of the boat around to face the bow into the wind and she settled back down. At which time I cleared the lump out of my throat and headed for the lee shore to follow it back to the ramp.

I lowered the blind for the return trip to my hunting spot. All the while saying a little prayer of thanks, as I was the only boat out there that morning. Sometimes the guy up above, has to protect us from our own stupidity.
 
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My daughter says when she makes mistakes it is because she is young and not stupid but what is our excuse when we get older are we brain dead or surffer from short term memory
 
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