help from BBSB owners

Chris S.

Chris S.

Well-known member
As a lot of you know from watching my post of my rebuild of my BBSB I am nearing the end of the rebuild. With the start of the season right around the corner I am thinking of grassing options. I am leaning to a mix of avery real grass and natural marsh grass mix on my new to me BBSB. I was hoping that some of the sneakbox owners would post up some pics of how they grass there sneakbox and give me some input on what they used and what worked best for them. Also I have grass rails running down the sides but other then grass rails what are other good ways of attaching the grass? I was thinking of using shock cord and those eye pads hardware for bimini tops and maybe some zip ties and twine. I am just looking for ideas of what works best so I can bypass the trial and error as this is my 1st year hunting from a sneakbox. Thanks for the help.
 
Chris,

I use both raffia grass and local grass. I start with a base of netting material. I then use cable ties to attach small bundles of the raffia grass to the netting. Last I add natural grass under the grass rails and into the grassing loops on my dodger/spay curtain.

Boat with only the bare netting.
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Boat with netting, raffia grass and natural grasses.
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Different boat with a different style camo leaf netting attached. This netting is more like mosquito netting with a leaf cut fabric sewn to it.
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Same boat with the leaf cut netting plus natural grasses.
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Chris, I can do one better than pictures. If you are willing to take a 1/2 hr ride down 55 I can show you our 2 man sneak boxes. 2 are grassed with Avery Real Grass (woven palm leave mats) and 1 sneak box along with my 14' aluminum boat are grass with Avery Killerweed. Both work, I use a little spray paint to change the color as the season progresses. Green in the early season and more brown as the it gets later. Actually the green starts to fade and wear off so I normally don't use a lot of brown.

But if you're interested, send me an PM and I'll get my # to you. And if you need a hand, willing to help. If I were you, I would decide what grass you want to use, before this weekend. Cabela's has good sales for their waterfowl classic this weekend.
 
Chris, one word of advice just be careful how much you use what ever it might be the key is quality not quanity. When it gets wet it weighs twice as much and it will collect ice if cold enough. I used fast grass mats last yr and they annoyed me. I would carry them and place them on the boat when I got there. By the time I was done they were soaked and weighted twice as much. Something I did on my spray shield that I liked was I went down the bay cut small bundles of salt hay and tied them in the grass loops with jute twine, held up well and did the job. When I got where I was hunting I would grab some native stuff to throw on. I plan on this yr to add abit of spraycan stencil camo and add some grass rails and a fishing net to the back deck with grass bundles tied on. Chris
 
just a note to guys with dogs be careful how you cut the ends when you use cable ties and dont leave any sharp edges I learned the hard way on a cut paw once out on the marsh...
 
just a note to guys with dogs be careful how you cut the ends when you use cable ties and dont leave any sharp edges I learned the hard way on a cut paw once out on the marsh...
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Good advice, thanks. I always use a knife to trim them flush rather than cutters which will leave a sharp stub. Otherwise I don't cut them at all and just leave them long. That way the end is already rounded and smooth.
 
C'mon guys I know there are more BBSB owners with pics of there sneakbox all grassed up on this site thanks for the pics dave and the advice from others

Anyone who uses killerweed from avery how long in the grass? Are they little stubs or are they long and you cut em to? Also what color matches the marsh grass the best? I would think the golden harvest then a shot of spray paint.
 
Chris, I'm only a year older at this than you, but last season I added bungee cord around my sculling boat and added natural vegetation. Cattails on the bow and other flat surfaces, rice stalks along the gunwales. Seemed to work fine, and gave me good cover hunting freshwater marshes that were mostly buttonbush, areas of rice, and wasn't bad during late season in the salt marsh. If I used the sculler more in the salt I'd do it up with bundles of spartina.

I got some of the Avery palm material mats on sale recently and they arrived a few days ago. Not sure I'm going to use them, as my boat just isn't that hard to cover with natural stuff. If I had a bigger blind to cover, they might do the trick, but the color and texture are both a bit off for what we have here.
 
They always say to tailor your camo to your surroundings, but that's too much work for me, since I hunt many places... each with different requirements. I absolutely support those who do it - more power to them, it probably increases their luck!

I use the woven mats of palm leaves (I can't recall the name exactly, but I think it is Avery fastgrass) for my Estuary BBSB in all places; from open water, to park up against the shore hunting situations. I figure that as long as I'm covered from bow to stern with nothing sticking out, I'm well covered. We did surprisingly well hunting divers in open water in BB this way last year. Attaching local plant life to my boat, if I have the time, is just going the extra mile, which I sometimes do if I'm all set, and still have some time to kill before shooting time.

Someone recommended hanging the palm mats outside for a few weeks, to let them get naturally weathered. it was excellent advice. I hung mine up on a friend's garden shed. They are kind of pale when you take them out of the box...

I attached a pic, where you can see how the boat is covered. I have since re-adjusted the way I cover it so you don't see the edge of the one mat lying on top of the cockpit.

Ah yes, don't forget tio camo your motor! I recommend getting a motor cover (I put raffia grass on mine).

Anthony

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Anthony,
That looks really good! I wanna do something along the lines of what you did. I wanna put shock cord on the deck and down the sides of the cockpit attached with the pad eyes from bimini tops and use the mats as a base layer and put natural grass under the shock cord to hold it in place. I will be up for regrassing the sneakbox as often as need be that's what sundays are for here in NJ. Thanks for the input.
 
Chris, Heres some pics of my roy high boat and my pond box, both are done with nylon bird netting an a mix of cabelas raffia grass and killerweed. It is low maintinence and seems to hold up well.

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Chris, Heres some pics of my roy high boat and my pond box, both are done with nylon bird netting an a mix of cabelas raffia grass and killerweed. It is low maintinence and seems to hold up well.

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Brian awesome job! I'd love to see one of those boats on the water someday...
 
Anthony what did you use to hold the mats on the boat?
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Actually, the way I overlap them, their weight, and the shape of the Estuary's cockpit pretty much keep them in place without the need for tying down. Wind has to be pretty strong for something to flip over.

The cockpit has loops sown into it where you can tie the mats to it with zip ties.

Anthony
 
Dave, your boat is looking good!

Just curious, why did you give up on the mud motor? I thought that was going to be a great combo.

Todd
 
Chris, for my little boat i used military camo netting and zip-tied killerweed and camo burlap to it. To attach it to my boat i sewed camo fabric around the cockpit opening and used stick-on velcro on both the camo cover and boat. That way the camo could be removed as needed and while headed to my spot I would just flip it inside the cockpit.

I made a smaller piece that can be added to cover me in the cockpit if needed. I attach this with velcro straps (like for computer cables).

Here is a picture of it when I first completed the cover. It looks a little more weathered now!

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Chris,

I use fast grass mats, usually just one for my canvas, and real marsh grass. Nothing beats the real thing. Spartina grass for the northern coastal marshes, salt hay for the southern jersey ones.

I have grass rails on my decoy racks.

Craig

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This is how you want the boat to look, what boat?

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Craig looking good I hope I can get my box to hide like that. I like the idea of grass rails on the racks. I think I will make up a few more to put on the racks.


Thanks to everyone for the pics and input.
 
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