Portable blinds are lightweight and easy to carry, just in case you need to move quickly during an early-morning hunt.
During a late-season Arkansas duck hunt last January, Stephen Pitt and two fellow hunters realized just a few minutes after daylight that they should have set up their decoy spread about 100 yards further into the rice field they were hunting.
"We had done some scouting the day before, and we set up our spread where we thought the ducks would be feeding that next morning," said Pitt, an avid duck hunter and pro-staffer for Memphis-based Avery Outdoors. "But we saw pretty quickly that we were off by at least 50-100 yards."
Back in the days when duck hunters only used stationary pits and blinds, Pitt and his friends could have only sat and watched as the ducks stayed just beyond their reach.
But they were using portable layout blinds. So they picked up their entire operation and moved where the action was.
"We were using Avery Finisher Blinds," said Pitt, an Olive Branch resident, whose father Pat is a famed waterfowl taxidermist and outfitter. "Each man just grabbed his own blind. We each grabbed a few decoys, and we moved everything in just a few minutes. Being mobile allowed us all to kill a limit that day when we might have missed out all together if we were hunting from a stationary blind or pit."
That's the beauty of the portable hunting blind -- and it's probably why the blinds seem to be growing more popular every season, even among traditionalists who have resisted using them for years.
For more than a century, waterfowl hunters were limited to three basic types of hunting.
They could hunt from permanent stationary blinds, which were like miniature tree houses built strategically on the edges of good hunting property. They could hunt from pits, which were little more than holes dug in strategic hunting locations. Or they could hide among the trees in a flooded swamp, standing waist-deep in cold water.
Those age-old methods have their good points, and they're all still popular today. But if the ducks aren't frequenting those particular locations, hunters are simply out of luck.
Portable blinds help hunters break many of the age-old ties associated with the more permanent options.
"If you're dealing with a drought situation, portable blinds can be a lifesaver," said Bill Cooksey, a Bartlett resident and communications specialist for Avery Outdoors. "In a year when we don't get a whole lot of rain, the best hunting on your property might not be right around the blinds and pits that have always been good in the past. Having a portable blind allows you to go where you need to go."
Many of the portable layout blinds on the market today look like sophisticate camouflaged sleeping bags. They're light and easy to carry. They're easy to assemble and disassemble, but still plenty spacious for a hunter in the field.
Avery has a wide selection portable blinds, including the popular Finisher, which collapses to a compact size of only 42 inches long and seven inches tall. The company also makes a popular blind called the Migrator and a waterproof case for portable blinds known as the Neotub.
The Neotub allows hunters to use portable blinds in water up to eight inches deep without getting wet.
Other popular blinds on the market include the GooseTrap layout blind, an 11-pound blind with a thick foam seat, a wide backrest, a removable gun flap, vegetation straps and a waterproof polyester ground bag for cover-up.
Final Approach's Eliminator Sport Utility Blind collapses to 36 inches wide by 25 inches long for easy transport in the field. The SUB has a rust-free aluminum frame, a waterproof floor, side-flagging ports and padded rests for your head and gun. It measures just 85 inches long, 36 inches wide and 18 inches high.
Almost all of the blinds have easy-opening flaps that allow hunters to stay completely concealed until it's time to start firing. Though they're available in numerous camo patterns, it's still necessary to add a little natural camouflage to them from time to time.
"A lot of times we'll take a rake into the field with us to rake up rice stubble that we use for extra camouflage," Pitt said. "You definitely want to make sure that you blend in with your surroundings."
Pitt said the portable blinds are especially good during the latter part of the season when many ducks have become "educated," and thus leery of the more permanent sites.
"When ducks have flown over the same spread of 200 decoys again and again, they get shy sometimes," Pitt said. "A lot of times when we get to that point, two or three of us will set up in layout blinds with a smaller decoy spread -- just something they haven't seen a whole lot. That can make a big difference."
Cooksey said layout blinds can even sometimes eliminate the need for water.
"I've been amazed by the number of people who have started having dry-field hunts," Cooksey said. "That was something nobody would have dreamed of doing 10 to 15 years ago. But I know people now who will get out in the middle of a dry field with two or three layout blinds and a few spinners -- and they kill a lot of ducks that way."
Whether you're hunting a dry rice field or a field with six inches of water, the portable blinds on today's market offer a different kind of hunting experience.
"I always say it's a very exciting and effective way to hunt," said Tom Fulgham, chief communications officer with Memphis-based Ducks Unlimited. "You have to use a little more patience and judgment sometimes when you're hunting from those kinds of blinds. But if you play your cards right, the action usually happens right on top of you -- and that makes for a great experience."
PORTABLE HUNTING BLINDS
A recent article on the web site operated by Memphis-based Ducks Unlimited listed several quality portable waterfowl hunting blinds. Here's a few of the blinds that were highlighted and the web sites you can visit for more information on them:
Avery Migrator-2 Ground Blind: averyoutdoors.com
Aero Outdoors Maximus Blind: aerooutdoors.com
Final Approach Eliminator Sport Utility Blind: fabrand.com
Tanglefree Layout Blind: tanglefree.com
GooseTrap Layout Blind: goosetrap.com
Source: http://kwindur.posterous.com/layout-blinds-make-late-moves-a-snap-when-hun
No comments:
Post a Comment