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Vince Uhde

I thought it was time for you to have an entry on your web page from Southern California. Yes, we do alot of hunting out here, though the opportunities are getting fewer and fewer than in the midwest, northern, southern, or eastern parts of the USA.

My 2 boys and my brother hunt primarily in Yuma area of Arizona. There we find small ponds along the rivers and do a fair amount of farmland jump shooting. My favorite though is setting up our rigs on the various land-locked ponds that we find. The attached photos are of my newest addition. It is a 12' AquaPod that I purchased this year. Though this boat is a very efficient layout design the birds that we hunt are all pass-thoughs. That is they are strictly migrating through the area and are very wary as they have been hunted heavily all down the flyway. We have found the new Wetland camos with the leaf cutouts to be our solution. This pattern blends in perfectly with with dead winter tules.

My blind setup is as simple as it can be: six plastic clamps, 6 lengths of 1/2" gray plastic conduit, 6 pop rivets, 6 plastic wire ties, 20' of 1/8" cord, 2-1/4" x 8" bungie cords, 2-18" aluminum rods with 2 90 degree bends, and 20' of wetlands camo w/ a handful of clothes pins. The clamps attach to the inside of the cockpit rail. The cord as the bow and stern pass through the tow hooks and couple with the bungie cords. The aluminum rods act as spreader rods to keep the bow and stern posts under tension and in an upright position. The camo drapes over the cords and is kept in position by the clothes pins. I tapered the height from bow (18") to stern (26") to allow sufficient coverage for my 10 year old son and myself. This also allows some extra cover for our Choc Lab, Chacha, since those Geenheads can be very wary to a bouncing pup in a boat.

We have found this rig to be the most concealable yet and provides us great success in our Arizona escapades. It also keeps our rig light weight and compact for car topping.