Shooting from Blinds

In blind-shooting, as against stalking and jump-shooting of waterfowl, the birds invariably must come to the hunter. This means that any blind, if it is to be successful, must be situated so that birds will pass closely by it.

For pass-shooting, this means that the blind must be in line with the normal flight course of birds as they travel back and forth. For shooting shallow-water ducks, the blind must be in shallow waters where ducks are known to feed. For sound or bay shooting, the blind must often be floating, so that it may be towed to within the normal courses of the flights. For hunting migrating geese in stubble fields as they head south­ward in the fall, pit blinds must be situated as close as possible to the most used areas, with decoys and a goose call serving to bring the birds in the final distances.

Before locating any blind, then, the pattern of the moving birds should be carefully plotted; and the blind placed in the closest, most natural position possible for their expected flight. This takes observation, a knowledge of bird habits, and often several seasons of trial-and-error before the best blind locations can be established. Good permanent blind locations include reefs; points of land jutting into open water; necks of land between two water areas; the inside bends of acutely curving rivers; and similar spots that waterfowl habitually cross.

PERMANENT BLINDS

Permanent blinds are more often used for such shallow-water species as mallard, widgeon, teal, and pintail because the areas these birds "work" can be more easily pin-pointed than those of diving ducks. And such

The permanent blind above is built of stakes driven into the river bottom and covered with cypress bark to blend with the terrain. The blind below, also of cypress bark, is built around the trunk of a large cypress tree on the river's edge.

blinds should be built only after observation has shown that the birds will use the areas annually.

Permanent blinds may be as elaborate as the hunter wishes, but are built to accommodate only one or two hunters. More hunters are a nuisance in a blind, and the size necessary for over two makes the blind too conspicuous. Blinds may be in the form of sunken boxes or elevated platform-huts. They can be built of a variety of materials, such as posts-and-planking, plywood, or wooden frames lined with tar paper and covered with chicken wire for inserting brush camouflaging.

Often in mountain or pothole lake country, a good permanent blind can be constructed largely of rocks piled in seemingly haphazard fashion into a small cairn, then covered with brush or limbs to look like part of the natural landscape.

In conifer country bordering lakes and rivers, a permanent blind may be nothing more than a brushy pine, juniper, or spruce tree situated at some strategic bend or point. Limbs on the "shooting" side are cut out and laced with others from nearby trees of the same kind into a small hutlike enclosure at the tree's base, with a small aperture in front.

In the same type of country, small blinds can be made to resemble natural pines or spruces. These are built by erecting a tripod of strong light poles a man's height, then strengthening them with other saplings. This frame is covered with green pine boughs, leaving an aperture for the gunner.

On brushy lake shores, islands, or points of land jutting into open water, permanent blinds are often built of stakes driven into the earth to form the blind's outside; then this skeleton is laced with brush.

In the building of any blind, whether permanent or temporary, the main idea is to cover it with an outside layer which is in harmony with the surroundings. In short, the successful blind must not only be situated so that flying waterfowl will naturally pass it; but it must seem to be an integral part of the landscape.

For example, in tule country, the tule covering should be laced vertically, not horizontally, into the blind skeleton. Similarly, rock or driftwood blinds constructed along coastal waters or lake shores should be made to look as casual and unobtrusive as other clumps of driftwood or piles of rock—not finished up in fine houselike shape. Also, the blind should be the same general size as the natural piles of wood or stone. For a

Built of two logs cleated together, with room for a duck boat between, the raft blind is camouflaged with rushes and grass woven through a chicken-wire fence.

similar reason, a blind built high, (such as the pine-tree blind mentioned before) would be entirely conspicuous and out of place, if built in an area of normally low vegetation. A better type might be a small shore pit, stake-and-laced with adjacent brush over its top portion.

Many permanent blinds in shallow water may be reached by wading. Others must be reached by boat, and in this case provision must also be made for concealing the boat. Many times the craft is pulled alongside the blind, then covered with brush common to the blind and area.

For waterfowl shooting in coastal waters, floating, permanent blinds are used. These often have to withstand rough water, and are solidly built upon raftlike foundations with elevated platforms to resemble small floating is­lands. Sides are made of plywood, or mesh laced with brush common to the shore, and lined with tar paper. Some are large enough to accommodate a small rowboat and in big water are often used in conjunction with a sea­worthy mother boat anchored within the general area.

Generally a blind is made larger at the bottom than at the top for the convenience of the hunters. A small opening is left at the top through which the hunter shoots. Many permanent blinds are heated by a gasoline lantern or small portable heater.

Like good violins, permanent blinds get better from year to year due to weathering, normal breaking down, and winds which mold them to the contour and harmony of the surroundings—quite like an artificial fly which trout like and suddenly go for. The more bedraggled it gets, the more they like it.

Any permanent blind should be built well ahead of the waterfowl sea­son. This allows the birds native to an area, as well as migrating birds, to get used to its presence.

TEMPORARY BLINDS

Suppose a hunter discovers that birds habitually cross a wooded strip of land between two separated areas of a river. Often the reason cannot be determined until the hunter flies over the area in an airplane, but the fact can be established by merely watching the birds' flight.

In such a situation many times the best possible "blind" is simply a large tree directly under the birds' route. The hunter posts himself tightly against the tree, in suitably colored outer clothes, and waits. His op­portunity comes in pass-shooting any birds that eventually cross.

Again, consider the rancher who irrigated his fields each fall for plow­ing and discovered that after a few days waterfowl migrating through the area paid no attention whatever to an occasional canvas dam lying spread out to dry along a ditch bank. Such a dam, incidentally, is a rectangle of heavy canvas, 6 by 9 feet or larger, with a light pole shoved through a loop sewn along one side. It is used to dam off ditch water.

Having discovered that the birds paid the dams no heed, this fellow simply left a canvas dam or two spread out innocently along a ditch near ponded water. Each evening, especially during foul weather, he would stick his shovel upright into the ground near a dam, as though he had left the field. Then he would crawl under the canvas, lie on his back with only his face showing and Old Betsy by his side, and wait. When a mallard or gander came sailing in, he would kick off the dam, sit up, and give the bird a bad time. The main virtue of this blind, other than ease of construc­tion, was that it worked.

Similarly, when migrating autumn birds congregate in wet stubble, a hollowed-out shock of unthreshed wheat, oats, or barley makes one of the best one-man blinds imaginable. The hunter simply arranges the bundles so that he can hunch down, partly inside the shock, and hope the cramps do not get to him before the birds do.

Recently, many farmers have taken to combining their grain in the fields, instead of stack-threshing it, and bailing the straw. Straw bales piled together, in a field of baled straw, do not look suspicious, and make fine one-man blinds also. Only enough bales are piled together to conceal the hunter.

An efficient use of the natural straw of grain fields to deceive birds which use stubble fields is in conjunction with shallow, dug pits. The hunter must first learn, as nearly as possible, the exact spots which the migrating birds are beginning to use most. This can be done by watching from a distance and not molesting the birds for the first day or two. Having estab­lished a likely spot for a blind, the hunter, after dark, digs a narrow, shal­low pit.

Such a pit need only be deep enough to sit or lie in. All dirt removed is carefully covered with straw from the stubble field. A blanket for cover­ing the hunter is then made by stuffing straw into the mesh of a rectangle of chicken wire. Lastly, the decoys are set out close to the pit in strategic positions and left overnight.

Just before daylight, the hunter gets into the pit, covers himself with the straw blanket, and waits for a flight of waterfowl. A honk or two on the goose call, once a flight comes into view, will help lure the birds within shotgun range. An advantage of this type of blind is that at least the blanket is portable and can be used in another location.

Islands in rivers pick up driftwood from the early spring run-off, which can be utilized for a blind. A blind on an island has the advantage over a shore blind in being closer to passing waterfowl, and permitting the shooter to see long distances up and down river without being seen.

Driftwood in such locations should be utilized with as little disturbance to its natural arrangement as possible. Also, any blind made of driftwood should be located on the upstream end of an island, not the downstream end where current would never ordinarily deposit it.

Often such a heap of driftwood may be improved and made more comfortable by the use of a tarp of suitable color draped over the top and held down by other sticks. Camouflage sheets may be purchased. Or canvas may be dyed a suitable color—tan in tule country, white during snowstorms, or dirty gray to match the driftwood itself.  Often an old

Pit blinds dug  in  stubble fields and  covered  with  straw provide excellent concealment for goose hunters.

canvas which is stained with mildew or mold will blend perfectly. In using any cloth as a covering for a blind, it is best to drape it loosely, not stretch it tightly, so that surface planes will not show up clearly from above nor reflect light unduly.

In marsh and lake country, either muskrat or beaver houses make good temporary blinds. The shooter simply climbs on top, drapes a suitably colored sheet of camouflage cloth around him, and lies in wait. Birds are used to the permanent stick-house, and unless the hunter shows up too plainly, will not pay too much heed.

Similarly, haystacks along river banks and lake shores in meadow coun­try make fine shooting blinds, if they happen to be located in the path of any consistent flight pattern. The shooter simply climbs on the stack via a ladder, covers himself with hay, and waits. Stacks of bundled wheat or oats in stubble land are often found to be ideal blinds for foul-weather flights of waterfowl coming in to the fields, and are used, often in conjunction with decoys, like the haystacks.

A blind may be merely a pile of sticks and brush (left) to break the outline of the crouching hunter before he rises for incom­ing birds, or a clump of cattails in which a hunter can conceal himself (right).

In open prairie country, the lowly tumbleweed, piled in quantity along fence-rows and dikes, makes a fine blind and is ubiquitous enough to be highly useful.

Temporary blinds are applicable to almost any hunting situation. The problem is to utilize materials available on the spot, and the best tool is imagination. The recent use of camouflage cloth helps greatly to accomplish this, and this item is easily portable.

The arrangement of any blind should be so that the waiting hunter has his back to the wind. This allows him to face birds coming in naturally upwind, and it is more comfortable. Often the ability to wait out a spell of gusty, bitter weather spells the difference between getting a bag of ducks or geese and getting a cold. Few places are colder than an unheated blind with the wind blowing in one's face.

Provision must always be made for a shooting aperture in the blind's top, large enough for a reasonable swing with the gun. Few men can hit a flying duck through something resembling a knothole.

Often when using temporary blinds for long hours or even several days in succession, many hunters get careless and inadvertently spoil the blind's effectiveness by tramping down the natural grasses and vegetation around it and leaving articles of equipment unconcealed. It is said that a Canadian honker can spot the shiny brass of an empty shell a quarter-mile away if it is flying high.

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