There was another reason I was over in this part of the campfire, and saw this thread.
I have not bowhunted in a few years due to a bum shoulder, but I thought I would throw some ideas at y'all.
Yes, natural ground blinds are cool, but there are some other very effective solutions I've tried.
First off, take a look at this:
Shamanic Portable Stump I taught my son this tactic, because he was 16 and hunting on his own and wanted to find his own spots. The nifty thing about the Portable Stump idea is that it is a middle ground between still hunting and blind hunting. The whole thing goes up and down in couple of minutes. BTW: Don't fear burlap. It stinks, but it is a stink that is natural for the woods. It is more of a cover scent than anything else. Deer do not seem to mind it. Having said that, I usually use Nylap. I have taken deer within 15 minutes of putting up one of these.
There is a variation of the portable stump I've used to great success. If you take the blind material and put it up between two trees, and then sit such that you are shooting parallel to the blind, you can fit into a very small space, and be totally invisible to the deer. I've taken a buck 10 paces away with a brisket shot while his sister watched me, standing less than 3 feet away. It works the trick is having the chutzpah to try it. The best place I've found for pulling this trick is where the deer are running parallel to a fence line, just inside the treeline next to an open field. They are more worried about what's in the field,and not what's right next to the trail.
The other idea I want to throw at you is setting your tree stand really low. This is a strange concept to come from an old nosebleed cowboy that used to think hunting started with your toes 25 feet in the air. This is kind of halfway between a ground blind and a tree stand. Truth is, if your feet are above a deer's head, he's probably not going to pay much attention to you. I've taken two of my largest deer from a climbing stand's platform less than 6 feet in the air. The trick to this is a) wind and b) being off the deer's line of sight. Again, I like to use this trick where the deer are not coming head-on at me and whose attention is going to be drawn elsewhere. Breaks in fence lines are good spots for this trick.
