Monday, October 12, 2009

Ground blind for Hunting

This weekend is the opening of Gun season and Im looking forward to tagging my first deer of the season. This year I am trying something new. Today I walked in the woods and found a great spot to make a ground blind. Essentially the blind serves as a way to break up your pattern so that wild animals can not discover you. If you have never hunted before, it's tough to find the perfect spot. Many people think that it's a disadvantage for hunters because we have weapons, but to the contrary deer, wild boar, turkey and other big game animals have extremely keen senses with smell being there most powerful senses. This is not true for turkeys because birds use more of eyesight than smell. But nevertheless, its extremely difficult to sneak up on game if you don't know what your doing. So this year I decided to make a ground blind. I usually climb a tree with my tree stand so that way I can get above the line of sight for most game and therefore get the advantage. But recently I have been doing alot of reading on how effective ground blinds can be if placed right. So today was my attempt to find the absolute best place and from the looks of it I found just that place. When putting up a ground blind you want to keep in mind that you have to find funnels. Funnels are areas where animal movement can be predicted by terrain. For instance: if there is a river running from north to south, and a patch of woods separating the river from a wide open field. We can safely assume that the patch of woods will serve as a funnel area for animal movement as they move secretly. I found a perfect funnel along a ridge that has a spur which concentrates predictable animal movement. It has been raining intensely over the last couple of days so trails have been washed out, but it is pretty apparent where deer and wild hogs will travel. So I decided to stake my blind along a group of trees that overlook the spur and give me the ability to see deer and hog movement with 360 degree capabilities. So my ground blind is set. Even though deer will be spooked by my scent over the next day or two, By this weekend it should back to business as usual, but that time I will be there waiting hopefully, with fingers crossed and the taming of my infamous buck fever. I don't even get buck fever. I get everything fever, Because everything that comes into range, Buck, doe,hog and turkey I get the jitters and my excitement always gets the best of me. Oh well. As I headed out of the woods I saw a nice sized hoof print from what appears to be deer cross the path I walked through. This is a great sign!!

2 comments:

Sue said...

Though I love to watch the deer, especially in the spring with fawns, by this time of year, they are a nuisance. Within the next few months, we'll have HERDS of them...........
Wanna hunt up here?
:D

ATW said...

Sue- I would Love to. The one thing that I really want to do is hunt all over the country. My work schedule doesn't permit me to travel like I want to around hunting season. I know it must be challenging to keep deer away from your garden. I would have a fit.