Thomas French
I was wanting to make the closest thing possible to a Final Approach Eliminator blind on my 4 Rivers fiberglass layout boat. What I did was this: I used four (total) eye bolts, two on each side, and spread the gap a little bit so it could accept a cattle panel. I cut a heavy duty cattle panel down to about 18"x48". I had to grind each point down so that none of them would catch on my clothes or waders. I used duck tape and electrical tape along the edges of the cattle panels to create a smooth, catchless edge. The bending of these things into the correct shape was a little difficult becuase the panels are so heavy duty, but they'll stay in the same shape forever (as opposed to welded wire).
Anyway, once they were bent, ground, and taped, I painted them both flack black. After that I used wire ties (small black one) to attach the fast gass mats to the wire. I used about 50 of them for that. The panels just fit down into the eye bolt openings and lean up against the cockpit (as you can see). Since the panels are bent close to the bottom, when they fall over, the don't fall into the water, rather they stick up into the air (also as you can see). For the cover on the front, I cut a 12' piece of 1/2" conduit into three pieces and flatened out the ends on each piece. I used some scrap fast grass and fastenened it together to make the cover the right shape and the conduit supports the mats. The panels fold in and there is enough space to see out, but also keeps the wind and water off me. I made a splash guard to keep the water and wind off of me from behind. Keeps the water off the dog out of the boat! All I have to do is sit up and the panels fall over really easy.
Also, as you can see in one of the pictures, I installed a 2 gun rack on the inside of the cockpit to hold my gun and a backup or my pole. I then made a stencil out of carboard with an exacto knife and painted the rest of the boat. I used liquid nail and a carpet square on the back so the dog would have something to get up out of the water on. All in all the rig looks great and should perform very well. The combined weight of the boat and blind is around 125#'s. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to drop me an e-mail! Thanks
Thomas French
dukslayr@hotmail.com
