Best Boat Guide

Duck hunting is a relaxing and gratifying way to enjoy the outdoors. Being successful requires real patience, to be still and quiet waiting for the ducks to touch down, a good eye for that shot and invariably persistence in dismissing the sometimes seeping cold.

Great skill is also needed. Choosing the right size and type of decoy, siting them correctly - which means reading and noting wind conditions. Shotguns need to be carefully cleaned and shot kept in good shape and on hand.

The triumph is to bag trophies. With ducks this will be not too many, to avoid overkill, and not too few. Enough to know that one's time and skill is vindicated.

The hull of duck hunting boats is nearly flat. In fact some argue that the most successful duck hunts undertaken are from layout boats and that the skill involved in this type of water-fowling will soon cease to exist.

The layout boat has a very low profile, lying close to the water. Both boat and hunter being well camouflaged, hunting takes place in the middle of the lake where the decoys have already been carefully laid out. The hunter lies down, almost flat, with room for him to be able to sit up and take a shot at the appropriate moment. Remember that most duck hunts take part in winter so true dedication to this art is required to follow the practice.

Layout boats are around 19" high, 11'-15' in length and 6'-8' wide. The wider they are the more stable they'll be. However this is only a small part of the overall outfit. One also needs a boat to retrieve the birds, transport the hunters and the decoys, and to tow the layout to its place.

These boats are hard to find commercially. People who use them generally build their own.

There are other boats from which one can successfully hunt like the Jon boat or canoe. This is also flat-bottomed with one, two or three bench seats. They are known to be stable, important for the moment when the shot is fired.

The flat bottom also means that the boat can go into marsh and reed where ducks may hide, without running aground.

Purchasing an outfit is one way to go, but there are alternatives. One of these is to build your own boat. In fact if you are an outdoor enthusiast, the choice of boat plans are endless. An advantage of building your own from these well constructed plans is that they are cost effective.

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