Greetings, and looking for advice

Hello everyone,

First time posting here, but I have been lurking and reading many of the topics for a couple of years.

My first experience with a wooden boat was a craigslist find. A gentleman was asking $300 for a Glen L. designed 'Sissy-Do', with a trailer an a 4hp weedless Evinrude. I jumped at this deal, as all of my prior duck hunting had been by walk-ins and occasionally hunting with a buddy from his boat. It's not an ideal hunting boat, but it gets me access to places I could not otherwise go, and with no dog, it helps in retrieving downed birds in deeper water. I have since put a 6.5hp longtail kit on it to get me in to shallow water, but the hull design seems to make it hard to hide, and it's slow with either motor on the back.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I built my first boat with plans I found on the Duck Hunter's Refuge forums. The guy selling the plans called it a 'Hybrid NL'. It's basically an 8ft marsh boat made from 1/4" ply with 3/4" frames. The build was quite easy, and even with no fiberglass experience it was no problem to get together. With the 4hp on the back it moves along ok, but I seem to go through at least 2 of the plastic props and several sheer pins a season.

I have been doing most of my hunting from the marsh boat this year, but I am looking to build another boat, and I would like some opinions on what might make the better choice. Been looking at a possible 'Black Brant 3', a 'Snow Goose' designed by Sam Devlin, or a wooden 16ft Jon with plans from Uncle Johns website. Most of my hunting takes place on shallow rivers in south-central WI. And I still have a lot to learn about outboards, and boats in general.

Would any of the three designs listed work ok with a longtail? Or are there other hulls that would work better? I am looking at this as a possible spring project. I'd by a hull, but as you all know, once you build a boat, sometimes all you want is to get in the workshop and start a new one.

Thanks for any and all input,
Bill
 
Andrew L (on here) runs a 23hp long tail on his BBIII. I think he gets 18 mph empty, and 11or so loaded. It works fine for him on the upper Mississippi. I would look at the Gator Duckhunter. It is a 14 or 15' flat. Also checkout www.tollerboatworks.com
 
I have seen the boats Brad over at Toller boat works puts out, he does an awesome job. A little out of my price range... But building one myself might be an option
 
Welcome Bill!

If I was to ever run another longtail mud motor I would build a boat like the one in this picture. This was a super simple basic jon boat with a hunt deck that I built years ago. I called it "zero squat" because after running longtail mud motors for years I wanted to test something out. If you have ever driven a longtail and fought deep mud to get up and running you'd understand how the motor can and will dig down like a drill bit into the mud. It'll screw down and even pull your transom down, I have broken handles off trying to push down to get the prop out before. This hunt deck design that I used didn't require the motor to dig at all! I'd rev her up and drop the prop down and she'd scoot right along without any digging! This was a slick rig!

What type of conditions will you be using your boat in? If you're running mud you'll want to build a flat slick bottom vs a displacement hull.

View attachment Paul and Ben with nice cats.jpg
View attachment The new boat gettin it done.jpg
 
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Hi Bill, a few years back I built a Black Brant 3 that I modified to run with a longtail. The BB3 as designed has a bit too much rocker and V for a mud motor but I took the rocker out of the aft end and it ran fine with the amount of V that was designed into it. I also moved the transom back to the end of the sponsons and to give the longtail room to swing.
Here's a photo of the transom setup
GQlA421.jpg

And here's what it looked like when finished
PBgFwd9.jpg

 
Still surfing the interwebs, browsing plans and daydreaming about a spring project. Stumbled across GF16 plans from Bateau that looks like it be a decent boat. Looks like a more general purpose jon than a dedicated duck boat, but there are 300 days where i cant chase ducks, so it may not be a bad fit either.

Got time to plan yet, but I'm willing to hear all the input I can get.
 
Been awhile since I originally posted here, but with the weather starting to get warmer I've been daydreaming about starting a build.

Had a scare last November with my little 8 foot boat. Was going to try out a 5HP Briggs outboard, got all my gear and decoys loaded up and when I put it in reverse to back away from the dock the motor flipped the boat on me. I know this motor was on the big side for this boat, but i never would have thought it would pull the back under like it did. Luckily the temp was still in the low 50's and the water was only waist deep, but it sure got my attention quick. Motor still runs after a draining it out and changing the oil. And I even managed to get the wife blessing to build another boat after I told her the story, so it wasn't all bad.

I've got the plans for a Black Brant 3, but I'm wondering if Devlin's Bluebill might be a better fit for the way I hunt. Almost always solo, and there are quite a few times where I get out and drag the boat thru the real shallow stuff, so a smaller boat might be the better option. Does anyone here have experience with both of these hulls?
 
YIKES! Scary!

Back in the day, I was going to build a Bluebill but then life got in the way. To me, its the perfect 1-man Devlin boat.
 
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