I've hunted Reelfoot a couple of times, they have a bunch of different rules with blinds. They set up a system where private previously known blinds were registered to one owner, when they die, that blind goes into the yearly state draw. I heard grandparents were registering blinds in their grandchildren's name to keep it in the family as long as they could. The State owned blinds go into a lottery every year. The rule is, you have the right to your private or state draw everyday of the season, if the blind is unoccupied at sun up, it's an open blind for that day, this is what might have happened. No one in blind at sun up, three guys get in it, old owner comes by to go hunting but is late, tells the three guys to get out, they don't and the shooting starts.
Blinds are at least a 1/4 mile away from each other, hard to say if ducks were going to one blind or the other. One time, we must of had 10 or 12 flocks of mallards circle out blind, not like the set up or the guides calling and go due west to the next blind and come in. That blind had 7 guys limit by 11:30AM and leave, just the way it goes. Once we were at the launch and a local couldn't get his 4-stroke started and the line started backing up, my buddy from New Jersey jumped in the boat and got it started, we saw those hunters at the restaurant that night and they tried to buy us diner, we already paid for it. I heard there were fist fights over blinds, it's sad that two young men had to lose their lives over a blind.
For what it's worth, some of these blinds are pretty elaborate, electrical hook ups for motion decoys, pretty nice stoves, If I put they much time and money in a blind, I would be hunting it or have good friends out there hunting it.
