Fast Grassing a Squareback canoe

S

Scott A.C.

New member
Does anyone here have a picture of a canoe they brushed up with fastgrass? I'm thinking of making a sportpal squareback canoe into a marsh layout. Thanks in advance.
 
alaskan20, squarebacks are ok but think about the one just sunk in Duck Lake last week in the wind. They don't seem to take weather too well. Be careful how you load it.
 
alaskan20, squarebacks are ok but think about the one just sunk in Duck Lake last week in the wind. They don't seem to take weather too well. Be careful how you load it.
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I'm not familiar with what you are describing. My use will be all backwaters. I've used the canoe for years and it's done well with two men in it plus decoys. This as a layout will be me and my steady lab.
 
One of the guys who hunts with us has a square back coleman scanoe. He built 3 light weight wooden frames that sit over the gunnels on his canoe. His grass matts are fastened to the wooden frames. He stacks the 3 pieces up on top of each other when he is paddling out. Once he sets out decoys he gets into some vegetation, sits in the bottom of the canoe and put the 3 grassed frames over his canoe. He has killed lots of geese out of that grassed up canoe.
 
The incident was referring to took place in the Duck Lake that is at the end of the Knik tidefalts (locally called the Hayflats) North of Anchorage here in Alaska. The Scanoe had two guys and deeks and was coming back across the 1/2 mile lake late in the morning when the wind blew up and they were now fighting a stiff chop. While making a turn towards the shore the canoe swamped and sunk. Luckily they were able to touch bottom and the guys managed to make it to shore and hike out to where they were aided in getting home, very cold and wet. The next day with the help of other local duckhunters they managed to salvage the boat, motor and almost all of their gear, even that which floated and blew downwind across the lake. They were very lucky to have survived the incident and to be in a community of other duckhunters that immediately came to their aid. I guess my point is that a boat with straight sides and no gunnel decking seems more subject to this kind of accident. If they had been a boat like Rays, BBII(I think?)this wouldn't have happened. Just be careful in the scanoe if the wind blows up. I personally have liked and wanted a scanoe for quite sometime, and would have many uses for it up here in both hunting and fishing, so I too am interested to see how the grassing project turns out. Good hunting!
 
Dude, you are violating the name rule. Nobody here hides from each other. Change your screen name before Eric or Steve gets on you.

Since you don't show your location we don't know what "backwaters" you will be hunting up here. The entire Knik swamp system be it the Hayflats or Swan Lake can have serious windy days that will make even my little BB3 feel questionable. I have seen 4 foot standing chop on Jim Lake which has less than 10 acres of open water.

If you are in the interior you have less to worry about with the wind and a narrow beamed craft.

The one thing to keep in mind with any narrow beamed craft is that they need a low center of gravity to keep their initial and secondary stability in control. If you use the fast grass panels, which are very dense material, your center of gravity will come up and you will be tippy.

Ed Askew has a good grassing system for his KARA boats and it would easily adapt to any craft with gunnels.

http://www.geocities.com/edaskew/kara/karacamo.html

The KARA has a wide beam and is not tippy so the fast grass will work well. For narrow beam boats like canoes I would recommend natural grass woven into green plastic garden fence from Lowes. It works well for me on the BB3. You can get Killer Weed from Sportsmans or order the MoMarsh grass which is a higher quality material. You can also dye your own raffia from the craft store.
 
Thanks for the tips so far. Wasn't trying to hide anything. Just my handle from other venues. When I registered, the first page I got to when I logged on asked if I wanted to make a username or change it. So, I went to the normal. Oh well.

I'm comfortable with the canoe for hunting. Have done it for years, just not as a layout marsh hide.Hope to get this together soon so I'll get some pics.
 
Since jesse and I are both in Alaska and you used that as your name we assumed that you were a local like us. Now that you have shown your location as no where near Alaska we understand that you would not have a clue about Duck Lake.

On this forum you should search for posts by Eric Esper, or kayak. I think Eric had a few posts on a mini blind on a kayak that could be made to work for a canoe as well.
 
Yes I did and as I predicted they've pretty much gone by the wayside. I don't know Why I violate the KISS principle with such abandon. The sneak screen is usefull as such but as far as blinds go shoving it into weeds and heaping it with natural vegetation seams to work just fine. Maybe I just need more hobbies. Steve S. if you're reading this got a copy of "Druidism for Dummies" to fill my time rather than these complicated wastes of time I come up with?
 
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