I have never used a drift sock or chute but am thinking about building a drift chute. I am fishing out of a 16.5 foot aluminum boat like a tracker. In a 10 MPH wind, should I be able to slow the boat down enough to properly drift cut shad for blues? I am thinking about making a chute out of solar screen material and some re-bar or something like that.

Get you some pvc pipe and cut to the length desired and fill it with sand and put end caps on it. Make the solar screen the same length as the pvc and attach it with zip ties. I put golf balls in the corners and tied rope around them to anchor off to the cleats on the boat. Also be sure and attach rope on the pvc in the middle so if the winds blowin a little harer that day you can swing the rope under the boat and around to the other side to keep it parallel.

How big is the pipe you used? Do you think a couple of lengths of 3/4 inch rebar would do it. Is there any reason to add more weight to keep the chute lower in the water? How hard is it to bring in a fish over the chute?

Academy....13 bucks for the big one, works great..P-19_

I use a 36 inch one on my kayak same winds. The one I have folds up very small and there is no reason to weigh it down the current will pull it down for you. Jump on Ebay, get better quality material in case it tangles up it wont tear.
Canvas (old army style),Tarp plastic, and backpack material are the best you can use.

The first one I built I used 2 or 4 inch pvc. The one I have now is about 5 inch old drilling pipe (very heavy). I wouldn't really use rebar because I like it to be a solid piece all the way across. The heavier the better to help it hang down in the water and I've never had any problem pulling a fish in because most of the time they surface out aways before you can get them to the boat.

Hope this helps out, not trying to sell the product or endorsing it just us it as a info/guide.
http://www.tackletour.com/reviewparatechbb48.html

Chase, do you think if I used 10 foot long pieces of rebar, maybe bundle 3-4 of them that that would work? Do you think that would be heavy enough? Does yoru chute hang pretty much straight down in the water?

I don't see why that wouldn't work just make sure you bundle them together good. The chute I have now probably weighs around 70lbs or so and hangs down pretty good. On a windier day you might experience it swaying out a little bit but thats why I put the rope in the middle of the chute on the bar so you can swing it around and anchor it on the other side of the boat to keep it down. Another plus on having the rope is that you can pull the chute up by yourself if you wanted too.

The reason I am thinking about the re-bar route is that I don't want to make it so dang heavy that I cannot handle it by myself. I was also going to make some hooks on it so that I could hang ten pound dumbells on each end and in the middle. I am hoping that with the dumbells and the rope in the middle like you are talking about that it will be enough. Or I could just take the advise I asked you for and use something like a fense post and fill it with concrete.

I have been using a shad trawl, because I had one already, it works pretty good, but before I dug it out I used a 5 gallon bucket.

Well... I got sick about wondering how to fit such a large device in my boat and bought 2 30 inch socks from Academy. I figure I can throw them both out if need be and be done with it.

On a side note Academy in Arlington has a sale on cast nets and I bought a 5 foot net for $20.00. I could never throw my 7 footer very good so I just downsized to a 5 and can now throw it pretty good.

I fix'in to throw that 7' one last time and leave it and go to a 5 footer. That 7 footer just wears me out, plus I can't throw it.

i'll take it dgilbert if you don't want it lol

Probably can work a deal.

I threw the 5 footer great in the front yard tonight. I figure i can do more good with this one than the 7 footer if then dang thing opens up. I threw it in the back yard and ended up cathing a dog. I hate that dog sometimes...MOst of the time he is great but *^*^ he can be a pain in the arse sometimes.

I used 1 1/8th inch Hex material, drilled and tapped 4 holes in it and used eye bolts to tie to. I used the plastic fasteners that you buy for attaching to the porch to tie my rope to. Mine is 8 feet wide by 4 feet long and I used the porch cover material with the largest holes you could buy at Lowes. I use it on a 19'8" Carolina Skiff and it works just fine. I have a rope tied to both ends which I use to get it into the boat where it lays on the floor of the boat. You probably don't need one so long but there is no need for 70 pounds of weight. I saw one built from a 6 foot piece of 1 1/2 inch galvanized pipe and it worked just fine. The key is the largest holes you can get in the screen material.

Another thing, If your using a 14 foot or smaller boat a 5 gallon bucket with a 4 inch hole cut in the bottom tied to each end of the boat will slow it dramatically. Buckets with no hole don't work half as well.

MudShark:
My wife went shopping yesterday to IKEA and brought back on of their heavy duty plastic bags and I started thinking hey this would be great material for a chute. Hope this helps I thing the bag was $1, cant beat that price.

Take a 6x8 tarp and tie two pieces of rope on each corner (make an x) and then tie a rope in the middle to go to your boat and it will do the same thing plus it will fold up for storage and you will not be tripping on it all the time.

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Homemade one from an earlier post.
http://texasfishingforum.com/forums/ubbt...ion#Post2191313