sneakbox may be wrong boat

B

bob Petritsch

Active member
Since I've moved to NC I shoot open water in the Neuse River. I keep reading reports of people getting a mix of diver and puddle ducks.
I've decided to build a sneakbox(Zack Taylor Widgeon) to use as a layout boat on the big river and to shoot puddle ducks on the smaller inner creeks.
This is what I did on Long Island and figured it would work here too. Saturday I took my boat up a creek to see if I could find ducks and to do some speckled trout fishing. Did spook three pairs of puddlers but I seem to have a problem with the shoreline.
There is no low beach with low spartina here. There is no beach....the vegetation comes right down to the shore and the shore line is 3-4 feet deep right at the edge. The vegetation is HIGH, 5 feet tall or more right to the edge. Pretty much a monoculture of tall weeds. I'm thinking that a low sneakbox might look out of place along this type shore. I might be better off with a floating blind that I can grass up with native vegetation and park right up on the bank. Any thoughts on which way I should go?
 
The divers will not be as fusy as the puddle ducks about the lower profile. For the puddle ducks I would try making a curtain from plastic 4' snow fence. Zip tie the native tall weeds to it and cut to length to create a curtain around boat. Then bring some rebar and drive it into the bottom of the river, provided it is soft. You might need a L bend to the top of rebar to hold the fence. Otherwise look for drainage ditches to pull into with the boat but you will have a hard time spotting incoming birds and they will be on you before you know it. Had this problem once this season with birds to close and when you are not expecting them they have the advantage.
 
Almost all of the rivers I hunt have 4'-10' vertical dirt banks. I love to just pull the boat up next to a steep bank. I always felt with the bank behind me I just blended in with the boat grassed up. I think low profile is deadly whether I'm in vegetation in open water on a lake or backed up against a vertical dirt bank on a river. I would hunt the area with you Zack box for a while before giving up on it. If low profile doesn't work I doubt a taller blind will either.
 
I hunt a similar river up in NJ using a BBSB and haven't had many issues. Here, 5-8 ft Phragmites comes right down to the edge of the water, and there is little to no beach. I normally look for a cut or pocket in the side of the river and pull in right there. It seems to blend in fairly well, especially if you put some taller native vegetation on the spray skirt.
 
I hunt some high bank rivers with mine, even with it grassed up for the coast. I just cover it up with some burlap and it disappears.
 
I don't think you will have a problem with either a low profile boat or a regular boat blind in this case. If you are against the bank, you will blend in either way.
 
I use grass native to where I hunt, if I hunt near fragmity I break up a couple and lay on the deck. Higher boat is usually heavier, but then you can take a buddy. Each has a place...
 
My sculler has a profile similar to a sneak box, though it's larger and has a double cockpit.

I grass it up with wild rice early in the season. Much of my early hunting is with the boat against a high vertical stand of rice at low tide. (Merrymeeting Bay is all fresh water, but has 5 feet of tide.) The rice on my boat is nowhere near as high as what's behind me, but it never seems to matter.

+1 on the "stuff the boat into a small creek mouth" theory, too.

Later in the season I trailer the same boat to salt marsh, and it hunts fine there, too. By then, both the rice on my boat and the spartina in the salt marsh are well weathered. If I hunt the open shore, I toss a little rockweed on top of the rice on the boat. Hunting a wooded shoreline, I'll drag some small deadfalls or branches out of the woods and criss-cross them over the boat to blend in. Or stuff the boat under overhanging cedar or fir branches.

I'm a firm believer that a high profile behind you is more important than perfect camo.

For all my fussing about grassing the boat up, when I use my shiny tin boat to access shore spots, I don't bother to try to hide it. I just leave it a hundred yards or so from the blind on anchor or pulled up on shore. More than once I've had ducks ignore my decoys (or more likely me moving around scared them off) and watched them pile in almost on top of the big shiny boat.
 
One of my biggest lessons from this past season was to always take the smallest boat I can SAFELY get away with.

Never heard of a small boat "sticking out" too much!
 
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