Pre-Season

[jrock75]

Not very much to report so far this offseason. Feels really odd to have so little going on at the farm and in the marsh when compared to all the heavy equipment and wetland construction activity we had the previous two years. We have had so much rain this summer with >10" in just the last week alone. I can't even get water off the fields nevertheless dry enough for equipment.

Fortunately we had no issues at the farm with Hurricane Beryl. The winds were in our favor with regards to storm surge and the freshness of the bay even kept the bayous sweet. While my bay house 15 miles away got ~8' of surge, we saw <3' in intracoastal where the farm bayou dumps out.

I haven't made it out into the marsh in the last 2 months but hope to find the SAV growing as it usually does in non-drought years. Hopefully this puts some of my favorite blinds back in the prime rotation this season after being really slow the last 2 years.

Rice fields look the best I have seen on the farm. They have planted ~600 acres. If the weather holds, hopefully they are cutting rice in early September with time for us to flood a few of those fields for teal season.

We had a good crop of moist soil plants emerge during the spring and early summer in the 3 fields that didn't get planted with rice (~300 acres). I was worried that the cattails were just going to come back but we have had only a limited re-emergence. Unless we get an extended dry period, it looks like we will not be disking anything and the only manipulation will be rolling out holes. I hoped to get in there and mow everything to get another head growing on the barnyard grass, but I don't see that happening unless we get a multi-week stretch of hot/dry weather.

One of the units has ~25 acres of bull tongue (Sagittaria lancifolia). Any views on this as a duck food? Some around here said the tuber is highly prized while others have said that they haven't seen it used on their property.

Bull Tongue

Bull Tongue.jpg

No Cattails, just duck food!

Field 13 with no cattails.jpg

Barnyard.jpg

[Duck Engr]

Looking good Jrock!

[Ducaholic]

Looking good Jrock!

No Doubt!

[jrock75]

I am looking for ideas for a solution to get the surface drive go-devil we use for one of the marsh blinds out of the water. Right now we just pull it up on the bank but we can't get it out enough to pull the plug. Had a storm last year send waves of salt water into it and ruined the battery, cables, switch, etc. Had another storm dump a bunch of rain sinking it the year before that. Fortunately the motor survived both of those but it may not the next time it happens.

Not sure exactly what I want to do or spend on the project but the first priority is getting it up out of the water. Second would be to get it some sort of cover to block some of the sun and rain but not sure I want to build a full boat house structure with a crank lift. Getting it winched all the way out of the water is relatively easy but then it would take a team to push it back in unless I had some sort of slick plastic on which the boat sat while winched up. I was considering one of those floating docks you see people use for jet skis but not sure how this would translate to having an 1860 sitting in it.

Pic of the launch area is below. Not shown in the pic is that we dug out the area where the boat is sitting so that you can more easily launch the boat from the road that runs north/south.

Launch Pic.png

[SpinnerMan]

I would think rollers are your answer. Basically make like a stationary trailer with rollers. Winch it up and as long as they are decent rollers shouldn't be much effort to push it back.

[Duck Engr]

I’d cut 4-6” diameter pvc pipes in half long ways, lay the round sides up. Mobile home anchor with a boat trailer winch mounted to a 3” steel tube. Run cable through tube and to anchor. Easy winch out. Easy slide in.

Buy a used prefabbed tube carport for cover.

[jrock75]

These are great ideas.

[Duck Engr]

I’ll be looking forward to seeing what you implement.

I’d also put some guides or bumpers beside the cut pvc pipe to keep boat from sliding off to one side or the other.

[Darren]

At a lease near Creole, La I hunted, all the boats were kept at end of an oilfield road, and all boats up on skids of PVC, etc. out of the water.

PVC probably your friend in your case, Jrock. If needed, put you a winch post at the front

[jrock75]

I think my plan is to build a relatively crude wooden frame out of 16' 2x6's running vertically on which to mount the the cut 4" pvc pieces across. Stainless hardware to hold the ends of the PVC to the frame. Then I could drive some posts in to serve as guideposts and to secure the frame to the ground. Just setting the cut PVC on the ground directly would be simple and work for a bit, but I worry they would sink into the soft marsh mud relatively quickly and may float when we get a big rain and the water level comes up and covers them. I would mount the winch on a 4x6 connected to the frame and driven into the ground several feet and tie that post back to others driven into the ground to provide support.

[5 stand]

We have used White (plumbing) PVC to build shooting stands at the gun club in the past, what we have found out is that white PVC is not sunlight resistant...
I'm a master electrician and electrical PVC conduit is sunlight resistant, and with the weight involved you may consider schedule 80 ?
But you may cringe at the price of schedule 80 ?
Plumbing PVC that is made for venting only is foam filled (and I think would crush under the weight)...

Do your homework on the PVC that you use...

[Rick]

We have used White (plumbing) PVC to build shooting stands at the gun club in the past, what we have found out is that white PVC is not sunlight resistant...

Perhaps some sort of variable beyond "white pvc" at work there, as some of it holds up well to years of sunlight.

[5 stand]

We have used White (plumbing) PVC to build shooting stands at the gun club in the past, what we have found out is that white PVC is not sunlight resistant...

Perhaps some sort of variable beyond "white pvc" at work there, as some of it holds up well to years of sunlight.

I was doubting the post before I went to bed, our main issue was the fittings... I would think that the PVC is not going to be much wider than the boat and won't receive much sunlight anyway ?
Good luck Jrock, could be a fun project....

[Rick]

We have used White (plumbing) PVC to build shooting stands at the gun club in the past, what we have found out is that white PVC is not sunlight resistant...

Perhaps some sort of variable beyond "white pvc" at work there, as some of it holds up well to years of sunlight.

I was doubting the post before I went to bed, our main issue was the fittings... I would think that the PVC is not going to be much wider than the boat and won't receive much sunlight anyway ?
Good luck Jrock, could be a fun project....

thumbnail_PXL_20240815_124214700.jpg

Call and I shot this board gate example of common pvc usage in rice agriculture on this morning's round. But we've also left 6" pvc pipe rollers out for years on marsh levee boat crossings. Not saying it won't eventually get brittle, but all I've seen sun rot was very thin walled stuff that wouldn't handle a boat's weight long, anyway.

Still, your "do your homework" sounds wise.

[jrock75]

Rick,

What do you think of all that bull tongue in your pic as a duck food? I have >20 acres of it in a unit this year and don't know whether positive, negative or neutral.

Jonathan

[Rick]

That's actually pickerel weed, the leaves of which are similar to bull tongue. which has small white, yellow-centered blossoms like duck potato's. It's my understanding that ducks and geese will eat the bull tongue tubers, as they do duck potato's. But I don't think the same can be said of pickerel weed, which has a different root structure:

IMG_2787a.jpg

Have seen bull tongue hold a lot of birds where nothing much else was to be found - except, perhaps, lack of disturbance...

[MARSH BEAR]

Maybe not the best idea, but it is what we do

2 - sheets of 3/4 treated plywood

2 - 2x12x16 foot long treated wood
1 - 2x12x8 foot long treated wood
3 - 2x10 or 2x8x8 foot long treated wood
2 - 4x6x10 treated posts
2 - 4x4x12 treated posts

Make the frame with the 2x12x16 and cut the 2x12x8 in half (thus 16x4 frame)
Cut the 3 2x10 or 2x8 in half to make your supports - double the middle supports to make it easy to screw the plywood, then put the other supports at 4' spacing. Attach the plywood to the frame.

Drive the 4x6 post into the ground on dry land, drill 1 inch holes through the 4x6s and the front of the frame - this is your pivot point for the ramp.

With the rear end of the frame in the water - drive the 4x4s into the water about 3 feet from the end of the frame. Attach trailer winches to the 4x4s and attach the straps to the frame - drive the boat unto the frame and winch it up out of the water
We use pvc pipe cut in half for the boat to slide on. Put the screws through the pvc at an angle at the bottom of the 1/2 pipe so as not to scratch the bottom of the boat.