New Member from Oklahoma

T

Tom Roberts

Well-known member
Hello....I wanted to introduce myself. I've been enjoying this forum for some time now and have been really impressed with the wealth of info. that comes through! So I decided to join your fellowship if everyone approves. Here's my duck hunting related bio............I'm an Okie from Muskogee and have an 18 year old son who's my hunting buddie. We hunt the area's lakes, rivers, slews, ponds, honey-holes...etc. We mainly hunt Fort Gibson Lake and an area known as Webbers Falls bottoms. We have a German Wirehair/Draahthar that loves his place on our team! I shoot a newly acquired Beretta 626 Onyx SXS that has already claimed a fair share of ducks. My son shoots an Ithaca/SKB 500 o/u that I passed on to him. I have to admit he sure has been sharp shooting the ducks with it! I have a 1970's 14ft Starcraft Mariner semi-v and a 20HP Merc that gets me to our favorite haunts on the lake. I totally redid this rig inside and out and hope to post some pics in the near future after I figure out how. I have some questions concerning its capabilities which is why I signed up with yall. Anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing from everyone. With the season winding down I'm going need to hear some duck hunting stories and ideas to tie me through to next year.
 
I'm not in Oklahoma, but "next door" to your east, in central Arkansas. I've heard several stories about the duck hunting opportunities in Oklahoma, just never taken a road trip to find out. What is your typical setup? Over here, we gun flooded timber, rice/corn/soybean fields, river channels and sloughs, cypress/tupelo swamp, just about anything really...but we don't have a lot of marsh/wetland gunning.

Are you gunning public or private ground?
 
Hello Tom, welcome to the site. I am running a 14' Starcraft with a 20 Merc as well. What kind of capability questions did you have?
 
welcome to the site Tom! Its a great place to share stories and talk with like-minded folks.
I see you alrady found someone that hunts out of the same type boat...
Dave
 
My particular boat is rated up to a 40HP and 850lbs max. I want to hunt some places out on the Arkansas River which can be treacherous when the wind whips up unexpectantly. Waves and swells can reach 3ft on a bad day. How safe would my boat be with a 20 Merc. if I were to get caught in this situation? I don't plan on it intentionally but you never know. I would like to think I've got a fighting chance.
 
On the lake I hunt out of my boat with a homemade blind that has worked nicely and set up on a small cove or on a point. From here I can get a variety of ducks but mainly Mallards, Gadwalls, and G.W. Teal. One day last year in Dec. when we had a major cold front complete with snow and ice, we had what was probably the most interesting and enjoyable hunt of our lifes. Morning started out around 25 degrees and heavy fog that was freezing on everything and making everything look like it was coated with cotton. Thought it was going to be a total waste of time. Fog didn't even start to lift till 9am, but when it did it was unbelievable! We easily shot our limits and either shot or saw around 10 different species. They were: Mallards,Gadwalls, Wood Ducks, G.W. Teal, Bufflehead, Bluebills, H. Mergansers, C. Mergansers, Pintails, and Shovelers. All morning we were wondering what was going to show up next. We would be working a flight of divers out front and then happen to look up and see a flight of puddlers circling overhead. Nonstop action!.......Anyway, our other favorite spot involve a place where water floods from a timbered area out onto the edge of a field. Requires a hike and getting out very early to beat the competition but it can and has produced some great hunts. This place is a very wild looking place with nearby river and mountains. You sit in water at the edge of the timber and spend the before shootin-time listening to owls,coyotes, wild turkeys, and ducks serenading you. Sometimes you get startled when a beaver comes up on you in the dark while your sitting in the water and he pops his tail. Sounds like a 22 going off......I'm trying to work up the courage to go out on the Arkansas River to some places with a great reputation for ducks but a notorious reputation for being dangerous if you happen to get caught out there in the wind.
 
I'v been caught is similar conditions and while it isn't fun the boat will get through it. You just end up taking a lot of spray from the V-hull cutting the waves. With the 20 on it mine is quick enough that I can hurry out of those situations if I see it getting bad. I clocked it on the GPS at just under 22 mph with 4 guys, dog, and gear, and 26.5 with just me, blind, and decoys.
 
Rick I forgot to mention that the places I described are public hunting. I got a boat so that I may increase my options and maybe get away from some people. I'm still looking and have got some other possible locations to explore. I'll do this in the off-season under the disguise of fishing.
 
One more thing. When we are going on big water I like to use 2 boats even if it doesn't seem necessary. This paid off last week. Three of us were going out from our cabin and even though we would have all fit into my Dad's 16' we decided to use both boats. On the way out he hit a crab pot and wrapped the wire around his prop disabling the motor. At best this would have ended hunting that morning and made for a long walk to get tools. Instead they were able to throw me a bow line and I towed them the rest of the way.
 
Billy thanks for your feedback. Did you do any restoration or modfication to yours? The bench seats were already taken out but I replaced the floor and coated it with that rubberized nonslip paint Cabelas sells, took out the stearing wheel set-up to save space, I coated the whole bottom with some stuff called Glove-it and Coat-it to seal my rivets, placed styrofoam blocks and sheets under the floor, put two camo-pedestal seats in, gave it a camo-paint job, rigged up a boat blind and powered it with the 20 Merc. I've been very happy with this boat and would like to take it out on more open water situations. My boating experience is limited so I'm trying to educate myself and work up the courage at the same time.
 
Tom, Mine was always a tiller steer set-up. When I got it, the boat had been sitting out in the weather for many years. The seats were rotten and the paint had oxidized to nearly white. I removed the old benches and cleaned, primed, and painted the hull. I replaced the benches and was able to reuse the flotation pods under the rear and middle benches. The foam was gone from the front one and I left it that way to make more storage room in the boat. The only thing that I did not replace was the transom board and I will do that this spring since I almost lost the motor. I didn't put in a floor to save weight. I did get a boat blind in Dec when cabelas had theirs on sale and with a little fine tuning it seems to work pretty good. The biggest problem with these old Starcrafts is the rivets. I haven't had to do it to this one yet, But on my Dad's 16' and another 14' that we retired, I've probably replaced enough to build a new boat.
 
I found this stuff called Glove-it that is flexible and works into any spaces around rivets or seams. Then I went over the whole bottom with some protective paint called Coat-it. Or maybe it was vice versa....but anyway it seems to do the trick and helped make the boat quieter. I also painted the bottom with some brown marine paint I picked up off of Ebay......You must have had the boat loaded to the max with 4 people, dog, and gear!
 
Gluvit?

http://www.marinetex.com/PRODUCT%20PAGE_files/All%20Gluvit/gluvit%20prod%20in.htm

I found this stuff called Glove-it that is flexible and works into any spaces around rivets or seams. Then I went over the whole bottom with some protective paint called Coat-it. Or maybe it was vice versa....but anyway it seems to do the trick and helped make the boat quieter. I also painted the bottom with some brown marine paint I picked up off of Ebay......You must have had the boat loaded to the max with 4 people, dog, and gear!
Click to expand...
 
With 4 guys and a dog she will jump right up on plane and go. That being said, this was on the river near my home, about 50 yds wide and usually very calm. I have had it in about 4' rollers, some breaking a little on top. I would not carry that big of a load in that. The bow will cut through the waves and you take a lot of spray in the face as well as get beat up pretty good. I have since found a ditch closer to my cabin that I can slide the boat into and I don't have to cross the big water. This is why I kept the boat as light as possible, to make it easier to slide in and out of the ditch.
Don't worry so much about working up courage. Get used to the boat and what you are able to do in it first. That little voice in the back of you head shouting you don't belong here is usually right.
 
I am from a little down river of you (Fort Smith). We hunt the river out of a 1755 express, last year was a 1542. It could be all you wanted in the 1542, however they are more flat bottomed than your semi V so you are cutting the water better. The 17 has a 60, the 15 was a 25 hp.

What you need to do is figure out where the long straight reaches are, and what wind is bad for it. Sometimes you are fine, come around a bend and it gets bad. Worse seems to be with some flow, and the wind blowing upstream. Also have to watch after high water, lot of floating logs, often just below the surface. Get a corps of engineers map of the river, shows all the rip-raps etc. Just remember, when out of the channel there is all kinds of stuff. Most of the lakes around you on the river get bad when the wind is up.
 
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