Suggestions?

I have some ideas but if there is a better one out there I would like to hear it. As you all know I am currently involved in making a pontoon boat a duck hunting blind. It is/will be equipped with a kitchen bed and toilet. In the puicture I have marked the 4 doors in green. I wanted to be able to go or get out in any direction. In red is the shooter's window. On my flatbed trailer blind, in the second and third picture, that shooter's window is open. There are no doors or windows. We cover and break up that massive hole with cedar bows. Even befor that though the dcks have never busted us. My concern is keeping the heat in, rain out and covering up the blind hole as much as possible. I have thought of saloon door style windows, guillatine windows, spring assisted windows, sliding windows. I am almost at the point of four 4 foot pieces of camo hanging from the roof and attachng at the shooters rail. If there is no shooter in one of the 4 foot shooters area, then the camo stays attached above and below. All I can say is this one is kind of mind numbing. I would like it to open all the way up when travling and close off down to the smallest holes for each shooter. Again keeping rain out and warm in is also paramount. I gotta keep the lady in my life happy.

Oh everything will be covered in old barn tin, painted black brown and green covered with vegitation.

Not sure about suggestions but I can tell you that trailer blind is impressive.

Check out the flip-up hogwire doors on this blind - we are going to add these to our small portable pond blinds - seems like a great idea and you can see through them. Each hunter can flip their own panel and you can lock them down while in motion. Might keep the rain off decently as well depending on how you space them out and how much each panel is camo'd.

article/blind plans link: DU Blind
video: Video link

I'm beginning to think hard about a pontoon boat blind myself.

I'm thinking of turning it into an island full of feeding waterfowl and hunting layout style with a heater between the floor and the shooting deck.

Hmmmmmm.....

Oh thank you. I have built a whole bunch of blinds over the years. I have had to always leave them behind. I finally decided to build a "take my blind with me when I leave" type of blind.

That's a good one.. I like the hog wire idea. mine is just covered with palm leaves.

I mulled over the same issue with the doors. I ended up with removable panels, that are adjustable to make shooting slots different sizes, or can be removed completely, or completly closed in, probably your best bet. I like to sit, with both hands on my gun when the ducks are comming in, I don't want to have to mess with opening a door. You can hide just fine without it, with proper cover around the shooting slot.

You might want to reconsider the design. Make the blind in the front of the boat, it would be smaller, but you could save the back part of the boat as a cabin.

it is way too late for changing the blind now. I couldnt change it anyway as it would only hunt 2 people if off the front. AS it stands now I have 18 foot of blind down the side of the boat. That would easily allow 4 shooters plenty of room, 5 comfortably and 6 crowded. I never would want to go over 4 but you never know. The whole idea of the blind is comfort.

I thought about removable panels but that would wind up being a pain in the arsenal. I would have to always secure them when on the trailer and driving. I am leaning to cattle panel inside a 1 inch angle iron frame. The frames would be X feet wide multiplied by 8 windows. They would be like 2.25 foot wide. Put hinges at the bottom of the frames and attached to the shooter's rail. They would be held fast to the blind with a bungee cord until pushed, they would pivot towrds the decoys and fall away. You could leave a window open and it would not really hurt your hide-ability at all. You could hook two of them together at the tops and have the ability to open a 5 foot window with one push.

This has been a good discussion thuus far. It got my wheels to turning a little bit.

I bet you will never be able to shoot a duck cupped up, by the time the door opens, and you mount your gun, ducks got a 10 yard head start the other direction. I mount my gun many times, never standing up, birds never see me, and don't know what hit them. One reason I don't like layout blinds, or ar least shutting the layout blind doors.

Guy I think that's a fair point but if you watch the video and see the spacing between the panels it looks like they were able to get some good shots off. In fairness I haven't used this system before but am gonna try it out this year.

I didn't see where they shot any ducks. Note in his demo, he does not show how the door works with a gun in his hand. Those doors look pretty good tho, because they are small. Smaller is better, big doors not as good, just flares the ducks more.

If I used one of those doors, I would want to sit, push door open with front of my berral, like stabbing it with a bayonet, that's pretty much how I mount my gun. Would need a little wood squar on the wire panel or berral would just go throw the wire panel.

Here is what I did this year when I built this new blind. Similar to what you are thinking already except I wanted it to be easy to open so I engineered it to have a mechanical assist. The blind is 10', the cattle panel is one 8' piece welded to a piece of angle, and attached to the blind with 4 hinges. This is not the best photo but if you will blow it up you can see the long springs installed on both ends. The locations they are attached make the cattle panel pull and break over like a cam. When closed it takes a very small touch for the panel to spring open. You only have to assist it about 1" and the springs take over. One person reaches out and gives the panel a simple easy push and the panel flies open and no one else has to do anything. We ended up covering it with camo see through mesh and brush with wire ties. It worked out very well when we wanted to close up the hole. It also blocked the wind as well. I use a bungee cord to hold it closed when not hunting. The bungee worked well also when we took it up the interstate to set it out. If I was going to start over the only thing I would do different would be to make it 10' instead of the 8'. That will probably be modified before next fall. The dog box door is similar but spring loaded shut. Pull a spring latch in the blind and the dog box door springs open. Here are a few pics, but I don't have a good one just showing the panel, or showing it closed where you can see it.

This may not work for your longer length, but it could be modified to open in sections the same way, or if loaded with the right springs the whole panel same as my design.

Untitled by wfhunter, on Flickr

Untitled by wfhunter, on Flickr

Untitled1 by wfhunter, on Flickr

Untitled by wfhunter, on Flickr

wfhunter I am diggin that door a lot. One of the hold ups I had with fall away was having to push the panel 2 foot before gravity would take over. It is apparent you got gravity timed just right. This is am option for me as I have teo 8 foot windows. They can also be four 4 foot windows.

In pic #2 I see the cattle panel twix the blind and the kennel. I am assuming for passing the bird through to the blind?

I am kind of a blind wierdo. I like big blinds with all the amenities. I spent so many years waking up at butt thirty in the morning, driving 3 hours by truck, an hour by boat. Setting up by daylight, hunting, killing or not killing a limit and then packing it up and driving it home. I aint old, but I am too derned old for that anymore. I want to relax. I believe the old saying is "Cool it boy, have a banana". I want to ease out to the hunt spot, not race a bunch of wild indian idiots wanting to fight over a spot. I want my crapper and my coffee, in either order or the same time is just fine with me. I want to be warm watching the sun come up as my bro makes my family favorite, rice, eggs, deer sausage and biscuits. If we shoot a duck great! If we don't, pass me the biscuits because I don't give a rats behind about a number anymore. It is all about being there. A man has a certain number of times in his life that he can actually go to a blind. That number could be 100 more times or a 1000 more times. Aint none of us know how many more we have left. So I choose to spend each moment left with quality not quantity. I just pray whatever it is, our creator, lets me have the 1000 day plus package!!! v It took me a long time to figure it out. I really don't care what is hanging on that strap.

We are definitely on the same level as far as what we care about. We are way past numbers and limits too. Sure we want to shoot some ducks, but not the judge of a good hunt. We hunted on the ground twice this year in layout blinds when the ducks did not want to cooperate. The second time we hunted about an hour and said screw this let's go be comfortable in the blind.

On the dog box my intention was just that, but found out that my dog and my buddies dog when inside both would just sit there and stare at us. I put a piece of card board over it to block their view inside the blind. This way they had to look out front and not stare at us when we where shooting. It helped them to see the ducks we shot out in front so they could do sight retrieves from the box.

On the dog box door I used screen door spring loaded hinges. They ended up being to weak. I had to put 5 on it to lift it and open all the way up. I would change this too if starting over and use a spring like on the cattle panel.

I thought we might have problems with the cattle panel flying open from wind gust etc... but did not. Someone did bump in to it once and it flew open, but was no issue. Another option I considered was a counter balance, but after thinking through it the spring was easier, it is adjustable if you need more or less tension, and about as simple as you can make it.

I'm not a physics major, but bending that panel door like that I'm sure allows that door to fling open a lot faster, and probably easier to reach over and close it.

The main reason I bent it was to give clearance for our gun barrels when in the gun rest, but it also helped with some weight to help counter balance the break over point with staying closed and flinging open. Without brush on the blind it sounds like you are ripping the blind apart when it flings open and hits the metal blind. With brush on the blind it flings open and hits the brush and is much quieter. It does help to reach and grab it to close it too.

wfhunter I think this is the route I am going to go. It would allow me to open and close them with ease. Open when driving the boat but closed when staying warm and hiding. Thank you for posting up, thus ending my creative brain fart.

You are welcome. Part of what I like to do now is always trying to find a better way to build a mouse trap. I enjoy my off season hunting projects as much as the hunt. I can tell you do too. Keep us posted on your progress. I would like to see how yours ends up. You might engineer a different/modified final solution.

I will certainly keep the updates coming. I would probably go a little crazy if I didn't have my off season duck hunting projects.

spray insulation?

I thought about it but don't think I will need it. I will have a dearbourn heater in it. That should toast it up really nicely.

That sounds glorious