A ground blind is an awesome tool that all hunters should use at one time or another. Although if you have ever used a ground blind, you have probably had a deer or two stomp and blow at you simply because that blind wasn’t there yesterday. A ground blind setup is far from a run-and-gun strategy, and there is some nuance to where you place it.
If you don’t want to spook deer with your shiny new ground blind, you need to practice good scent control, put your blind up at the right time, put it in the right spot, brush it in real good, and let the deer get used to it. If you aren’t sure how to do all of those things, you are in the right place. Let’s get started.
Practice Good Scent Control!
It doesn’t matter if you have the best ground or box blind in the world; it isn’t airtight, and does not contain all of your scent. You definitely need a solid scent control routine when you use a ground blind, but the first thing I want to talk about is the scent of the ground blind itself.
If you bought a new blind or kept yours in the garage during the off-season, it smells like people, and you need to remove that scent. Something as big as a ground blind can’t exactly go in your washing machine. Instead, you need to place it outside for a while. Open it up in your backyard, and let it air out for a while. It could help to spray it with some scent killer, but I usually just let the air do its thing. After a few days your blind should smell like outside, and not like a human.
After you get the scent of the blind figured out, you need to make sure your scent is as controlled as possible. When we think of a scent control routine, we all know the general basics of washing your clothes in scent-free detergent, and taking a scent-free shower, however, that isn’t going to eliminate all of your scent.
Scent control is a huge topic, so huge that I wrote an entire Ebook on it. It is called The Hunters Guide to Scent Control. You can learn more about the Ebook at that link, and what you get out of the book will be well worth the few dollars it costs. I guarantee it. I poured dozens of hours of research into this book, and I am 100% certain it contains the best available knowledge in the industry.
I broke this topic down so you can make your scent control routine as simple or as complex as you want it to be. I did this by implementing an easy-to-understand redlight system to gauge the importance of each tip I mention in the Ebook. The green tips are the bare necessities, the yellow ones are the best practices, and the red tips go the extra mile. That way, you know which tips definitely need to be in your scent control routine and which ones are optional.
If you are not so sure yet, you can sign up for my weekly email newsletter right here, and I will send you the first chapter of The Hunters Guide to Scent Control for FREE!
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Put It Out In Advance
When you put a ground blind out, you can bet that deer are going to notice it, even if it is well camouflaged. After they see it day in and day out for a while, they won’t mind it as much. So your best bet is to set it up well in advance of when you plan to hunt. In a perfect world, you want to put it out during the summer, and then your deer would have seen your blind for months before you ever hunt it. However, that isn’t always possible.
When my dad and I hunted on a lease in Kentucky, we would put the blind up on our first day there and hunt it the rest of the week. We had no other choice if we wanted the blind to still be there when we came up to hunt. So just make the best of it, and put your blind up as soon as you can. A few weeks is ideal, but the longer, the better.
Put It in the Right Spot
So, where do you put your ground blind? That is the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Well, there is a bit of strategy that goes into blind placement. For starters, you don’t want your blind in the middle of the open. If you plan on hunting a field, setting up inside the treeline is usually a good idea. You want to be able to see as much as possible, but the key is being able to get to your blind without spooking deer.
A popular use for ground blinds is hunting over ag fields or food plots. However, you do not want your blind right in the middle of the action. It needs to be in a spot where you can slip in and slip out quietly without spooking deer in the field you’re hunting. Jeff Sturgis has a simple test for blind placement. Can you slip in and out of your blind if 20 deer are in the field you’re hunting without spooking them? If the answer is no, your blind isn’t in the right spot. Check out this video from Jeff to learn a little more about blind placement.
If you want to put your ground blind up in the woods, you will hunt the same areas that you do with treestand. However, you will need to place that blind a little differently than a climber. If it is possible, you want to place your blind right in front of a thicker area where deer can’t go.
You want the deer to be in front of you, and while you might have windows all the way around, you don’t want them all open and moving around and opening them for a shot is not going to be the quietest thing in the world. So make sure you back it up to some thick brush, fallen trees, creek crossing, or something similar and brush it in to look like the surroundings.
Brush It In
The next step is to brush your blind in. No matter what new and fancy camo pattern your blind has, it needs a little 3D foliage from the local landscape. The important thing is that your blind looks like its surroundings. Don’t cut a bunch of cedar branches and put them on a blind that is surrounded by corn stalks. The best thing you can do is get all your materials from the immediate area around the blind.
If you are setting up on a field edge or treeline, make sure you sink the blind 5 or 10 yards into the woods. This is going to make it even more hidden from the field, but you want to make sure you do not block too much of your view. If your blind is brushed in properly, you should not be able to notice it from a distance of around 100 yards.
You also need to make sure that you don’t brush your blind in so good that you can’t get into it, or it is loud to get into. Leave plenty of room to get in and out, and clear out any leaves from the bottom of the blind, so you don’t make noise while you are moving around inside.
Let Deer Get Used to It
This section is a lot like the “put it out in advance” section, but I wanted to make an extra point. When you pick a spot for your blind, leave it there! You don’t want to leave it out all year long, but a high quality ground blind can be left out for many months and be just fine.
The reason you want to leave it there is that you have already done the hard part of getting deer used to it. If it is brushed in and in a good spot where you see deer, keep it there. If you move it, you will spook deer and you will have to start the process of placing it, brushing it in, and waiting for the deer to get used to it all over again.
Although if you just picked a bad spot for your blind on the first go round, you can definitely move it to a better spot, just make sure you do your due diligence with your scouting and pick a worthwhile spot the second time.
Sister Post | Do Ground Blinds Help Scent Control? [Yes but Know THIS]
A sister post is another post that I have written that follows along with the same topic as the one you just read. After reading this article, you will probably like this next one even more! Here is a little teaser…
Poor scent control has spooked millions of deer, and there’s a good chance you are responsible for a couple dozen of those. We have all spooked plenty of deer, but staying as stealthy as possible is the goal. Ground blinds are a great tool for that…Keep Reading
You Can Avoid Some Wind, but Not Much Else
So how much does a ground blind help? All they really are are thin sheets of polyester, so don’t depend on them too much…Keep Reading
What Are the Best Ground Blinds for Scent Control?
If a blind is going to be good for scent control, it is going to be made out of…Keep Reading
Thank you for reading my article! I hope you enjoyed it, and if you have any questions or feedback, please send me an email at Patrick.Long@omegaoutdoors.net. If you want to learn more about me or Omega Outdoors, visit my About Page. Otherwise, I hope you have a great day, and check out some of my other articles while you’re here!