Off season work

One would think building a duck hunting house on an island would be difficult. Well it isnt, that part is rather easy. The hardest part is equipment. I wa as towing a 24 foot pontoon barge with my fishing boat. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that's hard on a boat. Pulling as much as 5000 lbs on a pontoon barge at 3000 rpms for 1.25 hours both days is not good. Not only did I crack the fiberglass and repaired it myself, the trp lower unit smoked itself. Get you a gander at the cost if a new lower for yamahammer's trp.

So I got to thinking, why not power up the pontoon. One truck, one launch, cross over in 20 minutes..... it all lined up to where I knew it would be best just to make a work barge. So I found a 140hp motor and fixed the problems I found, hung it, hooked it all up and got it running really well. New deck. Added a center console way to the rear. I have 17.5 feet of free deck in front of the console. I can still run my tractor or ranger up and carry it. I can load 8 foot pallets with material with my tractor at home, get it to the island myself and unload it with the island tractor. I'm pretty excited about this boat. Beat up, old and ratty but will be an important addition to the fleet.

That looks like a much better alternative than towing it with a fishing boat.

I'd love to see the finished blind

This one isn't going to be a blind. It is to transport materials to Matagorda Island where I am building a duck camp. It will be 1200 square feet, gulf of mexico to the front and west matty bay out the back. I already built a pontoon duck blind.

Yeah those TRP lower units are pricey. I hit an underwater obstruction when I had one. Insurance wouldn’t buy a new one, but paid to replace all internal parts.

$4500 plus shipping was the cheapest new one I found. Ouchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!