The sturdy cockpit is the key to the success of this duck boat.

The snow swept across Dakota, blowing the ducks south towards Kansas, where Charlie Radford, a hunting partner and his 12-year-old daughter were waiting. Hunting on blind boats in Radford, these people are participating in a special hunting season for youth, veterans and active military hunters.

Radford said: "It was October 2020, the week before the opening of the regular season. It was too cold to wear a jacket." "We haven't pushed the ducks very well, but the blizzard in Dakota shot down a large wave of mallards. We went out to hunt the Perry Wildlife Management Area on Saturday morning. We started the boat in the dark and set it into some five-foot-high bushes, where the blind people blended in perfectly."

The shooting time is up, and they are making breakfast. The sky was full of thick flying ducks, they landed in the bait. The shooting was over in a few minutes. "We filmed a limit of five wild ducks, each with a spoonbill," he said. "My friend's daughter did not hunt, but her eyes were wide open. She is very excited about the shooting next season."

Radford is a 75-year-old retired U.S. Army veteran who is also a civilian contractor in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. As a resident of Lansing, Kansas, he started hunting with his father Ed at the age of 13. He shot the Winchester SX3 loaded with Federal No. 2 steel. He set up three dozen Dakota flocking head baits. When he hunts divers, he will add a dozen goldeyes and scaly fish bait.

Most of his duck hunting takes place in reservoirs in northeastern Kansas. For the goose, he went to the Kansas River. His hunting partners Steve Harmack and Brad Nelson helped him create the blind. "When I first started building marine shutters in 2010, I had a Phowler boat and tried something that didn't work well. Some shutters were modified commercial shutters, some were homemade, and they were on different ships. I have been selling boats with shutters. After making eight shutters, I finally got it right."

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The Beavertail Blind on the Phowler Sneak Boat in 1644 provided Radford with great ideas about his current blindness. It taught him that blinds must be easy to access and set quickly. However, it is very different from Beavertail Blind because it is not a flip-up blind with frame tubes of different sizes. The gate of the elevated shooting port is also quite different.

• 32 feet-1" square steel pipe

• 60 feet-1" steel conduit

• 2 sections-Rancho Safari Ghillie Net, 4 1/2 feet wide x 18 feet long

• 2 feet-1 1/2"x 1 1/2" angle steel

• 6 pieces-steel plate for cam

• Artificial branches with leaves

His current shutters were built on the Phowler Sneak Boat in 1750, which was powered by a Go-Devil 25 horsepower engine on a second-hand caravan double-decker trailer. Most camouflage blankets are stored inside the ship, and when the ship is towed away, the tarps will cover the exposed material.

The rectangular, sturdy cockpit is the key to the success of the blind. The shutters consist of two identical parts, port and starboard. There are three square pipe uprights on each side, which are bolted to the gunwale as the pivot point. The part of the pipe bolted similar to the top of the column allows them to rotate in unison-forward to set the louvers upward, and backward to put it down. When erected, the bottoms of the front and rear uprights of the shutters are snugly cut into the notches on the base made of angle iron, and the base is fixed on the inner wall of the cockpit with bolts. The blinds are held upright by two thumb release buckles. One hook goes into a hole in the angle iron base, and the other slides into the eye bolt on the top of the center column.

There are six top doors or shooting ports, with three hunters each on each side. They are connected to the louver top frame part of the louver by eye bolts. Each door is a welded D-shaped duct frame with a central support and a straight tube bottom aligned with the top frame of the blinds. The straight part passes through the eye bolt to allow the door to pivot. Each door opens from horizontal to nearly vertical and is held in place by a self-made steel cam, which is bolted through its center near the top of each column. Each cam has a hole from 3 o'clock to 6 o'clock. When the top edge of the cam touches the center support of the door, insert the thumb bolt into the appropriate hole and screw it into the hole behind the post to raise or lower the door to the desired height.

Three ducts are welded to the top edge of the door, on which there are decorative artificial branches with leaves. The hunter looked through the opening or walkway between the doors. When they got up to shoot, the hunter would open the door or stand up from the middle aisle.

The floor was covered with Hydroturf. The camouflage net is zippered and riveted to the blind frame. The PVC pipe is inserted into the factory hem at the bottom of the net, adding weight to keep the net taut. If you need more weight, you can slide a tube inside the PVC.

The hunter sits on a Bird N Buck rotating bucket seat with a backrest. A portable aluminum spray gun box can hold camping stove, PFD, spare ammunition and other equipment. The Baja light bar on the bow helps navigation at night. The LED lights at the stern help to bring the boat down the ramp and set the bait in the dark. Maize, Hammack's female laboratory, is located on the ship's integral stern platform, which is covered with Hydroturf.

During the hunt, a net was placed over the engine and opened between the top doors at the stern. The bow opening is covered in the same way. "This is the only thing I changed," he said. "I don't like all the loose nets on the floor. So, last summer, I made a folding door for the bow."

To display your boat or blinds in the "Boats and Blinds" column, please email the description, photos and your phone number to: mike@mikemarshoutdoors.com

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