Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Deer blinds...

Here in the Michigan woods most everybody hunts from a deer blind or stand. This time of year there are lots of leaves on the ground, making walking quietly difficult. When I was young and tough I spent years stalking thru the woods and finally came to the conclusion that I saw more deer when sitting and waiting for them to come to me.

We hunt private land and our blinds stay in the woods year round. Deer get used to seeing them and mostly ignore them.

To me finding the best place to put a blind, making it comfortable to spend long hours in and making it easy to get to without disturbing the wildlife is a real art. Yet I find nothing here about the subject...

In my 40's and 50's I spent every fall hunting out West where I could do all the walking and glassing for game that I wanted to. I loved it, just wandering the mountain West be myself but it doesn't seem to translate here in the heavily forested Midwest.

I'm surprised there isn't more on the subject here.

Every time somebody tries it, the western folks show up and say that we are idiots and just too lazy to hunt. They can not be told that conditions are different, and we just do what works. miles

Down here in the S.Texas brush country people can't see or walk thru the brush, there are some places you can crawl on your hand and knees, but you never know what you might meet, sitting in a blind is one of the ways to hunt and it works for a lot of people. Rio7

There is no question that blind hunting works well, and some places its one of the few ways to be successful most of the time.

But even in thick east TX and south TX brush, you can hunt on foot, and do very well. Just typically folks used to blinds have a learning curve. I know it took me some time to get to figure out how to hunt deer, in thick noisy areas on foot.

Often I describe it more as taking slow steps until I find a bit of a different vantage, and then wait for long periods of time before moving, often not more than 10 yards or so, someitmes 50.. Really its almost like blind hunting here and there, just no blind.

Same way we did it in the West.. no continual moving unless hunting bedding areas, then its so slow its not even funny

I've done the spot & stalk thing, and also blinds. In flat, brushy country the deer are likely to see or hear you before you see them. Yes, if you are extremely experienced & careful you can slip up on deer in brush, but your odds go down.

The one tip I would give people about blinds is deer - especially smarter, older deer - will learn to look at blinds to see if anything looks amiss. More than once I have seen a deer step out of the brush, look at the blind, see me in it, and bail out back into the brush. Today I always have the back wall blacked out, so they can't see my silhouette, and I put a camo mesh on the windows. That way the blind always looks the same, whether or not you are in it.

The really smart old bucks, will tend to avoid blinds altogether, unless it's the rut, or you otherwise call them in.

I "walk" a lot in the big woods of the Midwest. I track when I have snow. I love it, but some areas of the Midwest just aren't conducive to the practice. Take for example semi ag land in MI's lower peninsula. There aren't big tracks of private ground. A section is usually broken up into 5-20 parcels. I think similar instances occur is WI, IL, etc.

...and where there is heavily forested areas in the Midwest, it usually contains a fair amount of hunters compared to western states.

That's exactly what I do... The back of the blind is windowless and I use camo netting on the windows. I paint the inside of the blind a really dark brown and usually wear a hat and a hoody to minimize any shine from my face. Sitting still is good.

Dick

I'll offer that the best time to find stand or blind locations is a week or two after the season. Give them time to settle down, then wait for fresh snow . Gps the places, or if you are young enough, remember them! Check again for use early in the fall. We look for pinch points or places where two edges come together.

As for getting in and out without disturbing them, I keep a pair of muck boots outside for several weeks before the season, and wear them into the stand. If it is cold, I change into a warmer pair. Two weekends ago I had a young buck hit the trail into the stand. He stopped, looked around- and at me motionless in the stand- and then proceeded to make a scrape right in the trail! Not an old wary buck, but I didn't alarm him.

Also, need to play the wind on the way in. If you need to get to a stand from the west, you can't hunt that stand in a west wind, and need o think carefully about hunting it in quartering winds. . Which means having multiple stands for different wind conditions. Takes more work, but then you can hunt in any wind without compromise.

And be lucky!

Ps any typos are from this damm autocorrect!

I've spent many a happy hour in a deer blind!

I pack a sleeping bag in and sit in it, with my feet inside the bag on a piece of closed cell foam. Which is completely cheating.

I would love to see someone successfully still hunt in the cross timber region of OK where I hunt.

Washington Irving didn't refer to it as the cast iron forest for no reason.

because where I hunt in Ohio is mostly pine trees and dead ash, I use blinds mostly. Have a few ladder stands too. If I am in all black in my blind, the deer do not see me at all. I shoot most of my deer inside of 15 yards. My closest was somewhere between 4-6 feet from the edge of the blind. I only use my blinds bow hunting because I hunt on the edge of a suburb. If I gun hunt, I only use a ladder stand and the deer are at the edge of archery range. This way if any of the neighbors ask about a shot I can show them if I missed the deer by 100 feet in any direction I am still hundreds of yards away from the edge of my property line.

+1 on the wearing black and the interior of the blind should be black as well. Even though the blind is in the woods year 'round and deer get used to it they will look into the blind when approaching. I have had them bolt when they see my face if not wearing black, just the bright object in the blind that they're not used to seems to spook them. I have had it happen to me, and it's not just the older wiser bucks younger ones seem to know to look in the blind.

The wife andf I have hunted on a neighbor's property (Right across the road from our house.) for nearly twenty years. The blinds stay in the woods and aren't moved. Still the deer check them out every time they show up. Ther worst are the big and smart old does that spend a lot of time looking at the blind, stamping their feet and snorting. I've really been tempted a few times...

Since the blinds are kind of permanent, I've taken the time to make them comfortable... good comfortable office chairs that swivel and rock, windows that open and good heaters. The ultimate luxury is a good floor; thick plywood on a really flat surface and covered with indoor/outdoor carpet. This allows the chair to move easily and silently. (Keep some WD-40 in the blind.)

There's a coat hook and a shelf for the basic necessities... food, drinks,Tom Clancy or John Sandford books, a few good cigars... nobody said you gotta be uncomfortable just cause you're hunting. Re: the cigars... I can prove that deer like the smell of a Royal Jamaican better than the smell of a person.

That said,,, some of the best days I've ever had hunting were wandering, by myself, in the Western mountains. Really pissed off an outfitter once in the Bob Marshall by taking off by myself for a day and going up the mountain behind the camp. He told me he spends most of his guiding time looking for lost hunters and chasing wounded game. He wasn't a fan of the markmanship of most Eastern hunters. He said the worst of them showed up in new clothes by Abercrombie & Fitch with new Weatherby 300's. He said many of them were scared to pull the trigger.

It's fun to walk when you have wet leaves, right after a rain. At 78 it's getting harder for me especially since my knees are much older than 78, made that way by thirty years of basketball.

dick this thread brought back memories of your articles on blinds in precision shooting.i've used a few inspired by your articles

Ed

I love to still-hunt, but it's just not practical for a good bit of the season here because of the number of hunters. I have a couple of ladder stands on the patch of public land I hunt and on opening day, I crawl into one well before daylight and wait for something to wander or get pushed by. Later in the season, still-hunting becomes possible because most of the hunters have gone home. One of my stands is only about 11 feet up (the seat), but it's placed so I can see more than for concealment. At any height I'm willing to climb to, movement still has to be avoided. The elevation also makes it less likely I'll get hit by stray shots. I haven't tried a blind as yet as I don't want to be confined or have my vision and hearing restricted. I have used a tree umbrella in the rain and as a screen to cover my stray movements while sitting on the ground. The umbrellas are very light and set up quickly.

Can't emphasize this enough. It's exactly why climbers on your back or other, very portable set-ups work best for trophy bucks.

Dick:

Not sure that you are describing a blind. Could it be a spa? You can hunt a place like that for another ten years, fifteen if you move the recliner in now!😅

Dick

We basically have to hunt blinds by owner/lease rules. Sucks but thats life around the hill country.

So while everyone does what they want to, I did a lot of mostly slipping out of my stand during the week and sitting under trees. not to shoot a deer, but to see where they were traveling daily..

Found a good more or less saddle/crossing area, heavily used. No feeders around, and so on so I knew I was in a natural path.

Built a blind big enough for the wife, I and the dog. Before they quit allowing wives to go to the stands...gets dumber by the year I guess. When she is no longer allowed on the place, I'm gone...

But back to blinds. Hexagon with 4 foot wide walls. On a trailer. Elevated about 8 feet to the floor.

Got it to the top of the ridge I had sat on a lot looking.

Placed it behidn some trees, trimmed them. Got it just forward enough that the box was about the only thing visible from down below where all the activity was.

We can actually drive up to it if the wind is blowing out of the north, park 10 feet away, climb up the ladder carrying Tiger, put all my stuff in it, and the deer down below have NO clue anything changed. Can leave the same way.

Though generally if weather is good, we park about 600 yards away and slip in from the side through a couple of gulleys, same deal though, nothing sees us either way.

Spa wise I"m a bit short, though we do have a batt operated small TV.... lol. 2 office chairs now, one for me, one for Tiger. Tiger has his bed on teh floor too if he wants.

Damn nice, warm, dry, lazy way to sit.

In the end I still prefer sitting under a different tree every hunt, but I can't get away with that very often....