Wading back to the car park with a handful of birds after a day out on public water while hauling a layout boat or punt full of homemade decoys is just one of many aspects of home built hunting that I enjoy. My life is a bit easier when it comes to this kind of carry on as I am a carpenter and have access and knowledge on tools and you would be amazed what you can scavenge in the skip from a building site. If you are keen on hunting with gear you have made yourself then plywood is going to be your best friend. My introduction to the ‘Built not Bought” concept was when I was around four or five years old. I can remember very clearly Dad and Grandad Bob turning plywood into an assortment of different decoy postures, slapping black paint on half of them and making other half chestnut bodies with white heads. They even got a bit clever by drilling a hole through the tops ofgarden hose connector. This created the perfect carry handle by having a female bit at one end and a male at the other of a length of hose, sliding it through the silhouettes and connecting it together. I couldn't tell you how many times those silhouettes have been hunted over. They are still in the old man's shed looking exactly as they did 20 years ago.
