The perfect boat for Marsh Hens

Frank Wood in a home-made boat for marsh hen-hunting that is small, light and easy to pole.

Hunters can always use a new fiberglass or aluminum boat, but what about building the perfect boat for marsh hens?

After gathering photos of weathered classics and some on-line surfing, a stitch-and-glue boat plan from the internet was turned into a 12-foot poling bateau. The plan chosen from www.Bateau.com was FL-12, a flat bottomed, 12-foot rowing skiff. The plan cost about $35, and it should take about 20 hours to build the hull, with the completed skiff weighing about 100-pounds.

A stitch-and-glue boat is built with regular plywood, held together by fiberglass cloth and epoxy-resin. Nails or screws are not used, though a few are helpful in the assembly process and then later removed. The building process is easy for an adequate carpenter.

Adapting the plan into a marsh hen boat meant it had to be much stronger, needed a planing hull rather than a curved rowing hull in order to get out and back from the boat landing quickly, and it required a transom that would handle a motor capable of getting it on plane. It also needed an inner floor to withstand the beating of repeated standing and shooting.

The boat, as built, planes grudgingly with a 15-hp outboard, poles easily, slips through the grass smoothly and looks very classy. It is a little crowded with two people on board, so it would be even better a couple of feet longer.

Hunting from a home-made wooden boat and opting for an old, hammer-gun, single or double-barrel shotgun, gets you close to the full experience of those classic marsh hunts.

Editor’s Note: This story appears as part of a feature in South Carolina Sportsman’s October issue. To ensure you don’t miss any information-packed issues, click here to have each magazine delivered right to your mail box.

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