duck barge

Allen Peterson

Allen Peterson

Member
Lately I've been thinking of making a duck hunting barge from a pontoon boat. Anyone try this? after paint it would take a lot of brushing.maybe remove seats and use with layout blinds on deck.
 
Nephew And myself built one several years ago on a donated 24' pontoon hull. Blind 12' long by 6' wide. Roof line just low enough to shoot over standing. Front blind wall tapered in about 6" from top to bottom. Cntr. your build up on deck to alleviate rocking and keep weight centered. Our entry doors were on blind ends which allowed a walkway thru blind to tend anchor ropes , etc. Parked tender boat tucked up behind it as we were anchored in a bay . Blind hunted good except for ice got it and punched a hole in one pontoon. Moved it about a mile in the process. Needless to say it is a lot of brushing but use to that with size of my stationary blinds. If you decide to build and use in areas effected by winds, tides allow plenty of anchor line. Either 1/2" steel cable or 5/8" nylon rope at about 5 times depth of water as minimum. And of course a stout anchor w/3' chain. We used a spud pole at stern to stick in day of hunt allowing blind to adjust on its own to daily wind/tide effects. In sheltered marsh spud poles would suffice.
 
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I've seen a few of these here in North Carolina. They all were set up just as described above. What I think would be an interesting take on the pontoon boat concept, would be to station 3 or 4 field layout blinds on the pontoon platform, surrounded by marsh grass camouflage. That would give the entire blind a very low profile, perhaps lessen the wind resistant and eliminate the "Sail effect." Such a blind would, in my opinion, mimic a small marsh island.
 
I know of a group of guys who had a pontoon boat blind they anchored for the whole season on their lease. It had a low profile blind. They built a box below the deck for their feet and you sat with your butt about deck level. It was anchored so it could swing and hunt any wind direction. It was kind of a legendary blind because of how many birds it killed.
 
The challenge with those is the keeping them still, especially when the hunting is the best (windy). What can do it is a couple of pole anchors shoved through short sections of pipe screwed to the barge. I'll echo the concerns about keeping them low profile, if you are hunting the marsh.
 
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