Rick Reid Pictures Page 2
The Dog Door/Ramp
I have a 90-pound Black Lab named Honda who is my best buddy. He is a hunting machine, and I vowed to never leave him at home now that I have my own boat. Since he will be with me all the time, I wanted to make him a special place in the boat and an easy way to get in. The front deck of the boat is boxed-in by the blind and will offer Honda a warm, dry, carpeted place to lay down. To get in, I built him a dog ramp on the non-shooting side of the blind between the front and middle seats. The ramp is 26" square and is hinged at the bottom, allowing it to drop to water level. It has two cables attached that prevent it from dropping too far. Once the door is dropped, Honda can retrieve his bird and climb into the boat effortlessly. A bolt latch at the top secures the door.
The Hunter's Door
The hunter's door is similar to Honda's door. It also is 26" square, but hinges at the top. A bolt latch at the bottom secures the door, which is located on the non-shooting side, between the middle and rear seat.
The Stow-Away Shelf
Every waterfowl hunter likes a little something warm to eat, but trying to find a place to set the stove without burning something up is impossible. To address this issue, I designed a shelf on the wall of the shooting side that folds up and out of the way. It is 26" wide and 15" deep when it is folded down, but it only sticks out from the wall about 2" when it is folded up. It is the perfect size for that handy dandy two-burner Coleman stove.
Gas Can & Propane Tank Shelf
Doesn't it stink to have to crawl into the blind and dig out the gas can and propane tanks when they need filled? I designed a simple solution. I built two shelves off the back of the blind, one on each side. The gas tank straps to one and the propane tank to the other. A small piece of camouflage netting covers it all. This conserves a great deal of much needed space in a 12' boat.
The Storage
Those nice, soft, cold aluminum seats that are standard in Jon Boats are full of styrofoam. I cut the tops of the middle and rear seat, leaving a 2" lip all the way around the top of the seat. Next, I used a shovel to dig out all of the styrofoam. Finally, I replaced the cut out seat tops with ½" plywood cut at the proper angles, covered them with carpet and hinged them. This wasted space that the seats used to take up is now nice, big storage compartments.
