Scooter Hook & Pike Pole

Steve Sanford

Steve Sanford

Well-known member
I just got back from Long Island - and brought with me the final "missing piece" for my Great South Bay Scooter - a beautiful Scooter Hook/Pike Pole thanks to the grandson of the man who built the original Scooter back in the 1880s. Although Schuyler "Bud" Corwin was unavailable over the weekend, he passed along to me a really nice Scooter Hook (the fitting) mounted on an elegantly shaped 7-foot ash handle - altogether known locally as a Pike Pole. The Pike Pole is used both to push the Scooter along on top of the ice - and also to pull the Scooter out of water (an "air hole") or through "porridge ice" (too soft to support the boat, too thick to row).

The unique feature of a Scooter Hook is the combination of the pointed Spur (aka Spike) and the spade-like Flange (aka Hoe). This enables both the pushing and the pulling - so necessary to ice work.

A few of you have asked for details and measurements on the Scooter Hook - so here you go....

1CorwinScooterHook-oblique-small_zps6e1a947c.jpg


Here is the Profile:

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Here is the Plan View:

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Here is a head-on view of the Flange (aka Hoe):

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Here is a measured drawing - if you print the image on 8.5 x 11 paper, it is a full-size (1:1) drawing.

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Although I try to make my own boats and gear whenever I can, I have NO expertise with metal-working. Making a Scooter Hook requires the skills of a blacksmith - someone who knows how to shape, weld and temper steel so it does its job.

NOTE: This Pike Pole has a fairly short (1-1/4" long) ferrule - cut from a length of either brass or copper pipe. Most of the Pike Poles I have seen have a longer ferrule - typically 3 or even 4 inches long.

Also, note that there is a steel pin that goes through the shank of the Scooter Hook; this is peened over on both sides of the handle. I presume that the handle is bored lengthwise to receive the shank - which is made from square stock.

Here is the Pike Pole ready for use (although I will put a couple of coats of paint on it). This one is about 7' long - but some are much longer, perhaps 12' in length. I like one that can easily stow inside the boat while gunning or rowing.

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Most of the handles I have seen are simple, straight-sided poles - about 1 5/8" in diameter; they may be reduced in diameter to fit the ferrule. This one is elegantly tapered at both ends. Near the ferrule, the taper begins about 4-1/2 inches back from the beginning (aft end) of the ferrule. The other end is rounded over like most rake handles. The diameter is full for the first 5 inches then tapers down to 1-1/4" inches by the time it reaches the 6-inch mark. This 1-1/4" section very gradually tapers back to full diameter at the 36-inch mark. These subtle changes in shape are not merely aesthetic. They tell me where my hands are on the pole without having to look.

All the best,

SJS
 
David~

I'm sure the Peavey Pick & Hook would work in a pinch - especially on hard freshwater ice. The reason I needed a real Scooter Hook was for the soft salt ice - BUT I have gotten along with an old Ice Hook - from the days of ice ponds and ice houses - for many seasons. The narrow "Hook" end will rip right through soft ice sometimes - times when I knew I needed the right tool for the job.

All the best,

SJS
 
David~

I'm sure the Peavey Pick & Hook would work in a pinch - especially on hard freshwater ice. The reason I needed a real Scooter Hook was for the soft salt ice - BUT I have gotten along with an old Ice Hook - from the days of ice ponds and ice houses - for many seasons. The narrow "Hook" end will rip right through soft ice sometimes - times when I knew I needed the right tool for the job.

All the best,

SJS
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Steve, I read this earlier today and really enjoyed it, a what a neat write-up on some really neat history (fairly local too). Thanks for taking the time.

I know it is crazy, but something in me says that I just need to have one, maybe in stainless :).
 
I have always avoided the ice, fearing damage to my boats. I may need to re-think that.

I was not thinking substituting the a pick pole for this tool but using it as a starting point to make one. In general I think you are always happier with the right tool for the job. It was that I do not think anyone makes these scooter hook and pike poles, so if anyone wants one they will need to find an old one (yours is the only one I have ever seen) or they need to build a new one.
 
Tod~

You definitely need one - I wouldn't leave the house without one!

I would look into bronze first (just 'cause I'm so Old School....)

All the best,

SJS
 
David~

Had I not found one, my plan was to go to a local blacksmith. But, as I mentioned to Tod, bronze has its allure....

All the best,

SJS
 
Very cool story and an even cooler tool, thanks for sharing! Can't wait to see what you come up with next.
 
Steve, when you see the blacksmith... have him make at least 3... I want one and know Rufus will want one. IDK if bronze would be the right material? How would it be fabricated? A casting would not be as strong as the forged steel? I don't know how you could work it in bronze, is it forged like steel?
 
Dave~

I'm hoping someone on this site knows about metals and their properties - to provide me with some much-needed education.

All the best,

SJS
 
Great post -- really enjoying the living history lessons! Concur with Dave - if you find the right 'smith, sign me up for two now that the South Bays are together on their tandem trailer. Thanks, Rufus
 
ok....that is a really cool tool....but can you explain to those of us who live in areas where the water only gets hard inside ice machines how it works and what it's for.... got the it pushes and pulls, but what do you accomplish in pushing and pulling? I'd really be interested in knowing how it works....

neat tool....neat history from what little i've read....cool that you have one

Dani
 
Dave~

I'm hoping someone on this site knows about metals and their properties - to provide me with some much-needed education.

All the best,

SJS
Click to expand...


Hi Steve

I'm likely talking out my back side here, but if memory serves me, you would have the hook forged of iron, then bronzed to protect it. Your blacksmith, even if he doesn't do such a process, would know for certain the steps leading to the process and likely know someone he could refer you to or send it on himself.

Aside from that, I must comment that this post is yet another that backs up the statement made recently that you should make a book...my only quandary is weather to recommend a detail oriented book, or a coffee table book. You obviously have enough information and material for either, but reading your posts and seeing all the diverse waterfowl nostalgia within your photos makes me think a nice, oversized layout, heavy on photo, easy reader book that "we" could leave out for our non-waterfowling friends to casually read while visiting would be a great way to clue them into why we obsess to the verge of insanity over this stuff. As a household with a very extensive library of vast subjects, I can't imagine not adding such an item to our collection.

Best, and thank you for all you contribute,

Chuck
 
Dani~

I'm not sure if you've read my earlier posts about rehabbing my Dad's Great South Bay Scooter. All the steps are in one spot on my site:

http://stevenjaysanford.com/great-south-bay-scooter/

Thus far, I have mostly just described the restoration process and how Scooters were built. I plan to relate some tales of my experiences - and some of those heard from others in the future. Finding the time to write such stories is much more difficult than the photos-with-how-to-narratives I can easily write as I complete different jobs. Although the mid-summer doldrums may give me that opportunity - at our camp on Lake Champlain away from all the chores in my shop/studio and farm - for this boat I definitely want/need to get many more digital photos of it in use next winter. (So, of course, I am hoping for another cold one....)

Briefly, these boats were developed ~ 1874 on Bellport Bay - the eastern end of Great South Bay on Long Island - by Capt. Wilbur R. Corwin (who also designed the first Scooter Hook - made by Bellport's local blacksmith, Joseph Shaw). The boats were a way to navigate the Bay during the several months when it had ice. Because of the tides, the ice always offers a varied assortment of hardness and thickness - and there is open water, too. (And my favorite are the pressure ridges - as high as 4 feet at times - which make it feel like a true Arctic barrens.) While the coastguardsmen (Lifesaving Service back then) and baymen would work on or over the ice, gunners needed to get to the "air holes" - small patches of open water that offered the only feeding opportunities to waterfowl, especially Broadbill (Greater Scaup) and Redheads back in those days. Gunners would bring a modest number of decoys along. In many cases, gunners made smaller stool specifically for gunning in the ice so that the rig could fit below decks - clear decks being necessary for rigging a sail. (We've never sailed our Scooter so we carry 24-30 large decoys in the rack on the stern deck.)

The Scooters could be dragged, pushed (piked) or sailed on the ice - and sailed rowed or poled once in the water. Ultimately (ideally?), it can sail over the ice - then "scoot" across open water - then back onto the ice - without mishap....

The Scooter Hook design relies upon the spur for pushing and the flange for pulling - either to get the boat out of the water onto the ice - or to pull the boat over and through the soft "porridge ice" which does not allow dragging or piking. So, once entering an air hole - with one last shove of the pole, decoys are tended and downed birds retrieved with pole or oars. The Scooter may be anchored fully afloat or just wedged into the softer ice near an edge. At the end of the hunt, the Scooter Hook gets you out of the hole for the trip back to the trailer.

BTW: A craft you might be more familiar with - the air boat - can perform similar feats. I once had a job driving one at Horicon NWR in Wisconsin. I think an air boat might be harder to hide once you rigged in an air hole, however....

Hope this helps,

SJS
 
Chuck~

The most practical approach might be galvanizing the steel hook. In practice, I have NEVER seen a Scooter Hook that was even painted. With mine, I plan to clean the existing rust with a wire wheel and maybe naval jelly - and then coat it with boiled linseed oil.

All the best,

SJS
 
Rufus~

Actually, now that I have my "new" Pike Pole, I do not plan to have any Scooter Hooks made locally. I imagine, though, that there are blacksmiths south of the Mason-Dixon who could fashion one from the drawings of the Corwin Scooter Hook....

All the best,

SJS
 
Steve - Great piece of history... I believe Corwin also was a decoy maker wasn't he? Thanks for sharing.... Pat
 
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Jack~

It was a gift from Bud Corwin - thanks to the intervention of Craig Kessler. Lots of guys have Scooter Hooks and Pike Poles on hand - but most are not ready to part with them.

All the best,

SJS
 
Pat~

I do not know antigue decoys as well as I should. I believe a few Corwin's made decoys. Wilbur R. built the first Scooter - I do not know if he carved. Wilbur A. may be the most well-known carver. And Bud (Schuyler) is no slouch.

All the best,

SJS
 
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