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This year it seems like the prep is never ending.

First thing on the list started back in the fall with planting corn. Short corn to be exact (http://www.canamaizeus.com/). This is actually prep for future seasons not this one. This was a learning process as we have no experience in planting corn a large scale. We planted it this year to prepare and practice for when we have our levee system in, which will be built next year.

That drawing is only part of the flood (I don't have an up to date drawing on me). We decided to add to the design and now there will be another acre of corn to the right of the trees and then in between the two corn plots will be Jap Millet.


After planting I started the hunt for a tender boat for diver hunting. Some time in June I found a nice 13 year old star craft that had been in storage since 2004 and had only 10 hours of use (http://www.waterfowlforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=5712&hilit=+tender). Then in August I started painting the camo on (viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6646&hilit=+tender). I'll spare you the details and let you look through the two threads and just post a before and after pick here.



While dealing with the tender I also painted 3 dozen or so decoys.
(Picture to come)
Rigged those decoys for long lines, made new main line anchors out of scrap materials, and bought new storage devices for the long lines...

Excuse the sloppy welds, didn't take my time to make it pretty.



Then a couple weeks ago while stumbling around on CL I found an MLB Layout boat for a decent price, of course I couldn't help myself so I bought that and bundled the purchase with another dozen decoys.



Also, around this time we started the construction of a new detached garage (you can see its beginnings of the garage in the picture of the layout) for the soul purpose of storing decoys, kayaks, and the removable blind from the big boat. I think with geese, divers and puddle ducks we now have around 24 dozen decoys.


Since I bought a layout I had to build a rack for it on the tender...


I would paint the motor, but I plan on selling it to buy a 25 hp, so instead it will get a motor cover for this year.

While painting the inside I broke the outlet of the live well pump so that has been ordered and will be installed next week. Yesterday I decided to installed a cheap bilge pump just in case of emergency and a make shift blind in case we decide to hunt the river out of the boat.
(Picture to come)

This weekend, before we shoot geese and teal on Monday, we will brush one of our marsh blinds and do some scouting other than that I think the season prep is done other than a few small things and practicing with the tender, mother ship, and layout.

Very nice Woody. Your diver game is going pro, if I lived in MI full time again I'd be doing the same thing you are.

Thanks, bud... hopefully it turns out we don't just look the part.

Forgot one other prep item, planning and organizing two "big" hunting trips this year. One to the U.P. and one to Sandusky Bay.
Finding Cabins on the water with with sheltered docks and in close proximity to boat launches took a lot more time than I was expecting, probably took more time than anything other than painting the tender.

Well, Dan convinced me to change up the main line storage instead of buckets they will now be in these.

Woody wrote:This year it seems like the prep is never ending.

First thing on the list started back in the fall with planting corn. Short corn to be exact (http://www.canamaizeus.com/). This is actually prep for future seasons not this one. This was a learning process as we have no experience in planting corn a large scale. We planted it this year to prepare and practice for when we have our levee system in, which will be built next year.

Corn field impoundment %26 greentree res .jpg

That drawing is only part of the flood (I don't have an up to date drawing on me). We decided to add to the design and now there will be another acre of corn to the right of the trees and then in between the two corn plots will be Jap Millet.


After planting I started the hunt for a tender boat for diver hunting. Some time in June I found a nice 13 year old star craft that had been in storage since 2004 and had only 10 hours of use (http://www.waterfowlforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=5712&hilit=+tender). Then in August I started painting the camo on (viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6646&hilit=+tender). I'll spare you the details and let you look through the two threads and just post a before and after pick here.



While dealing with the tender I also painted 3 dozen or so decoys.
(Picture to come)
Rigged those decoys for long lines, made new main line anchors out of scrap materials, and bought new storage devices for the long lines...

Excuse the sloppy welds, didn't take my time to make it pretty.



Then a couple weeks ago while stumbling around on CL I found an MLB Layout boat for a decent price, of course I couldn't help myself so I bought that and bundled the purchase with another dozen decoys.



Also, around this time we started the construction of a new detached garage (you can see its beginnings of the garage in the picture of the layout) for the soul purpose of storing decoys, kayaks, and the removable blind from the big boat. I think with geese, divers and puddle ducks we now have around 24 dozen decoys.


Since I bought a layout I had to build a rack for it on the tender...


I would paint the motor, but I plan on selling it to buy a 25 hp, so instead it will get a motor cover for this year.

While painting the inside I broke the outlet of the live well pump so that has been ordered and will be installed next week. Yesterday I decided to installed a cheap bilge pump just in case of emergency and a make shift blind in case we decide to hunt the river out of the boat.
(Picture to come)

This weekend, before we shoot geese and teal on Monday, we will brush one of our marsh blinds and do some scouting other than that I think the season prep is done other than a few small things and practicing with the tender, mother ship, and layout.

Hey boss you can make real easy big weights for your long line get a Big muffin tin fill with lead add a Big swivel before it cool .you can make 6 at a time be about 1.5 to 2 pounds depending on how big of a tin you get .

Woody wrote:This year it seems like the prep is never ending.

First thing on the list started back in the fall with planting corn. Short corn to be exact (http://www.canamaizeus.com/). This is actually prep for future seasons not this one. This was a learning process as we have no experience in planting corn a large scale. We planted it this year to prepare and practice for when we have our levee system in, which will be built next year.

Corn field impoundment %26 greentree res .jpg

That drawing is only part of the flood (I don't have an up to date drawing on me). We decided to add to the design and now there will be another acre of corn to the right of the trees and then in between the two corn plots will be Jap Millet.


After planting I started the hunt for a tender boat for diver hunting. Some time in June I found a nice 13 year old star craft that had been in storage since 2004 and had only 10 hours of use (http://www.waterfowlforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=5712&hilit=+tender). Then in August I started painting the camo on (viewtopic.php?f=21&t=6646&hilit=+tender). I'll spare you the details and let you look through the two threads and just post a before and after pick here.



While dealing with the tender I also painted 3 dozen or so decoys.
(Picture to come)
Rigged those decoys for long lines, made new main line anchors out of scrap materials, and bought new storage devices for the long lines...

Excuse the sloppy welds, didn't take my time to make it pretty.



Then a couple weeks ago while stumbling around on CL I found an MLB Layout boat for a decent price, of course I couldn't help myself so I bought that and bundled the purchase with another dozen decoys.



Also, around this time we started the construction of a new detached garage (you can see its beginnings of the garage in the picture of the layout) for the soul purpose of storing decoys, kayaks, and the removable blind from the big boat. I think with geese, divers and puddle ducks we now have around 24 dozen decoys.


Since I bought a layout I had to build a rack for it on the tender...


I would paint the motor, but I plan on selling it to buy a 25 hp, so instead it will get a motor cover for this year.

While painting the inside I broke the outlet of the live well pump so that has been ordered and will be installed next week. Yesterday I decided to installed a cheap bilge pump just in case of emergency and a make shift blind in case we decide to hunt the river out of the boat.
(Picture to come)

This weekend, before we shoot geese and teal on Monday, we will brush one of our marsh blinds and do some scouting other than that I think the season prep is done other than a few small things and practicing with the tender, mother ship, and layout.

Hey boss you can make real easy big weights get a Big muffin tin fill with l

Thanks for the tip, but I'm not sure something that small would hold in the Great Lakes. Those anchors are almost 5 lb and I hope I designed them in a way that will grab bottom a little.

Way to get after it

Woody wrote:Thanks for the tip, but I'm not sure something that small would hold in the Great Lakes. Those anchors are almost 5 lb and I hope I designed them in a way that will grab bottom a little.

I hunt on Erie , most of the time 2 is all you need even in ruff water .
I am just guessing on the weight .

firstflight wrote:

Woody wrote:Thanks for the tip, but I'm not sure something that small would hold in the Great Lakes. Those anchors are almost 5 lb and I hope I designed them in a way that will grab bottom a little.

I hunt on Erie , most of the time 2 is all you need even in ruff water .
I am just guessing on the weight .

Then I may be wrong... my bad!

Do you hunt Sandusky?

Woody wrote:

firstflight wrote:

Woody wrote:Thanks for the tip, but I'm not sure something that small would hold in the Great Lakes. Those anchors are almost 5 lb and I hope I designed them in a way that will grab bottom a little.

I hunt on Erie , most of the time 2 is all you need even in ruff water .
I am just guessing on the weight .

Then I may be wrong... my bad!

Do you hunt Sandusky?

Sometimes if big ducks are in .

firstflight wrote:

Woody wrote:

firstflight wrote:

Woody wrote:Thanks for the tip, but I'm not sure something that small would hold in the Great Lakes. Those anchors are almost 5 lb and I hope I designed them in a way that will grab bottom a little.

I hunt on Erie , most of the time 2 is all you need even in ruff water .
I am just guessing on the weight .

Then I may be wrong... my bad!

Do you hunt Sandusky?

Sometimes if big ducks are in .

Where do you normally hunt on Erie?

Woody wrote:

firstflight wrote:

Woody wrote:

firstflight wrote:

Woody wrote:Thanks for the tip, but I'm not sure something that small would hold in the Great Lakes. Those anchors are almost 5 lb and I hope I designed them in a way that will grab bottom a little.

I hunt on Erie , most of the time 2 is all you need even in ruff water .
I am just guessing on the weight .

Then I may be wrong... my bad!

Do you hunt Sandusky?

Sometimes if big ducks are in .

Where do you normally hunt on Erie?

When it's cold and south winds .

So, not Canada...

Took the layout and tender out to near by lake to work the kinks out. In the absence of any chop things went pretty smoothly.
We picked a very shallow lake to learn in, in case one of us fell in, only problem with that was all the weeds. Made it a real PIA, so we only deployed and recovered the layout once. We will pick a day with 1 foot chop and give it another try some place else.

Now the only thing left to do is grass up the blinds this weekend.

Scouting didn't go so good, found zero geese and only 15 teal... Not going to be much of an opener.

Also, the channel leading to one of our blinds is over grown and we can't get a boat in there to brush it up.

Brushed the blind up almost all the way today...

And cut a landing hole in the pads.

Making me feel like the slacker I am.

Woody wrote:Brushed the blind up almost all the way today...

image.jpg

And cut a landing hole in the pads.

image.jpg

Looks good Woody.

Thanks D!

And Rick I'm only 25 and I'm already getting to old for that blind. It's 3 or so miles up in a swamp that we don't have an appropriate motor to get to so it's all push pole action for two of us in flat bottom and another in a kayak.

Hard work always pays off




But sometimes it takes longer then you want

Woody wrote:Thanks D!

And Rick I'm only 25 and I'm already getting to old for that blind. It's 3 or so miles up in a swamp that we don't have an appropriate motor to get to so it's all push pole action for two of us in flat bottom and another in a kayak.

I'd be wanting two more kayaks. Polling a flat is a bear.

Rick wrote:

Woody wrote:Thanks D!

And Rick I'm only 25 and I'm already getting to old for that blind. It's 3 or so miles up in a swamp that we don't have an appropriate motor to get to so it's all push pole action for two of us in flat bottom and another in a kayak.

I'd be wanting two more kayaks. Polling a flat is a bear.

We have 3 more kayaks, but the flat hauls more brush.

It's that time of year again, time to hang up the rods and reals, clear the boat of fishing gear and put the blind on the boat.
Start:


Stripped of summer gear:


Hoist the blind up:

Finish:

That's quite the barge.

Nice boat Woody. That the one you bought last year?

The Duck Hammer wrote:Nice boat Woody. That the one you bought last year?

Yes, sir.

Spent the last weekend working on the hunting equipment shed. Put three walls up and garage door.
We wanted it to be sealed to keep mice out and the cheapest way we could figure was to use the cheapest garage door they had at Lowes. Problem is they are 8 foot tall and we only had 7'8" to work with (we retrofitted the existing carport structure to make the shed). So we removed one of the sections and cut the track down. It is now the shortest garage door in history at 5'6" (ish) tall, but it will provide a mouse tight seal. I'll get some pictures tomorrow.

All that's left on it is to put paneling on the front wall, calking any gaps, shelves and puting up soffit for venting.