Steve Evert of Beach Haven, N.J., needed a watercraft suitable for hunting the local salt marshes. He found the perfect boat blind, starting with an unused water toy: a two-person pedal boat.

"Where we hunt in the salt marshes of New Jersey, there is very little cover for blinds, so maintaining a low profile is the key to effectively hunting puddle ducks, geese and brant," Evert said. "Most of the salt marshes are owned by the state or federal government, so permanent blinds or pit blinds are not permitted."

For many years, Evert and his hunting pals used pond boxes, which are relatively heavy fiberglass or wooden low-profile floating blinds made of wood or fiberglass. Other hunters use sneak boxes effectively. But navigating to his hunting area in an 18- to 20-foot open boat across large bays meant mooring the larger boat several hundred to 1,000 yards away, and then dragging or floating the pond boxes into the proper location for hunting.

In the salt marsh areas and non-tidal areas of the islands within the marshes, standing water several inches deep is common. But a falling tide can leave little to no water in the marsh at the end of a hunt, requiring a lightweight blind that can be dragged or carried out of the marsh over the mud flats and marsh grass.

"When possible, we prefer to float our blind out, walking slowly in knee-deep water with all of our gear stowed in our blinds," Evert said. "So, we not only needed a lightweight blind, it had to be easily grassed, set up easily in shallow water and easy to transport in our boats. There are no commercially available pond boxes or lay-down blind that exactly fit our needs, as far as we have been able to find. The boats made from the fiberglass molds in our area are not readily available and those that are available are very heavy."

A few plastic models came close to filling Evert's needs, but did not work well because of a multitude of reasons, including size, shape and cost. Fold-up ground blinds would not work because they did not float and were also too expensive to leave in position for days at a time, imperiled by floods or by theft.

"When I saw a two-person pedal boat lying upside down in the trash one day, I envisioned a two-person puddle tub," he said. "It's not that uncommon to see them in the trash, so anyone should be able to locate an abandoned pedal boat if they just keep looking for one. It appeared that the pedal boat was constructed of two molds: one for the hull and one for the topside. By separating the two, the hull mold (bottom section) would allow two hunters to lay down inside it and grass it up and the topside could be discarded."

The first step in making the two-man puddle tub was separating the top and bottom molds by drilling out the aluminum rivets holding them together. In addition, staples holding the molds together were separated using a large flat wedge and hammer. Evert said the staples were neatly broken with the wedge one at a time simply by shifting the hammer strike and working the wedge along the line of staples.

Once the bottom hull was opened up, it was checked for fit and size. The pedal boat Evert used is perfect for two hunters, each with his own gunning compartment. The middle hump, common to most pedal boats, was retained to separate the headrest areas. The hump also retained surface area to aid in multi-directional, camouflage grassing.

The pedal assembly was removed. Then, a mounting bar was added for the backrests. A piece of 1¼-inch PVC pipe was inserted through holes cut through one side, then the hump area and out the other side. The PVC mounting bar was held in place with caps glued on the ends, which extended beyond the boat sides.