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- TideWe Vis Master Hunting Blind [Hands-on Review]
A solid hunting blind is a great tool to have in the deer woods. While they are not as mobile as something like a climber stand or a tree saddle, they are super comfortable and provide an incredible amount of concealment. Movement is usually the number one thing that gives hunters away, and while you wouldn’t want to do jumping jacks in a ground blind, you can get away with a whole lot more than you would in a simple tree stand. This is especially good for youth hunters, which are usually not very still in the woods.
I have already written an article about how you can use a ground blind to get a huge advantage, so if you are more interested in the strategy than a specific blind, check it out here.
While blinds are neat, choosing one can be tough. Nowadays, no matter what kind of hunting gear you buy, there seems to be a million options. Well, one company I have been paying attention to is TideWe. I have been working with them for a little while, and they keep coming out with more and more gear each year. Full disclosure, they did send me the Vis Master hunting blind to review, but they did not pay me for this article. So I am not required to be positive, and I have never been known for being overly nice anyway.
TLDR; Is The TideWe Vis Master Ground Blind Any Good?
I have been trying out the TideWe Vis Master Ground Blind this early season, and in short, it’s a pretty good blind. You have plenty of room for three people, and most guys can stand up in the center. It isn’t very hard to put up or tear down, the windows open easily and quietly, and the see-through material makes it easy to see deer close by without worrying about which of the many windows you forgot to open. The see-through material is a trade-off for weatherproofing and scent retention, but many hunters would say it’s worth it.
Of course, most of you are here for the nitty-gritty details instead of a simple summary paragraph, so let’s step through the major attributes of a ground blind, starting with the basic specifications.
Vis Master Hunting Blind Basic Specs
For starters, this blind is pretty big. It can comfortably hunt three people, with dimensions of 70 x 70 x 80 inches. However, that size also leads to the worst stat, a weight of 25 pounds. The see-through material combined with the five windows gives you an impressive 270-degree view. Even being see-through, the material has a pretty good camo pattern. It isn’t anything special, but it also isn’t some horrible new pattern like every company seems to be trying to make nowadays. Lastly, the blind is supported by 11mm fiberglass poles, many of which connect to rugged metal hubs.
Material 300D Polyester Support Poles 11mm Fiberglass Weight 25 lbs Dimensions 70 x 70 x 80 inches (L x W x H) Visibility 270 Degrees Number of Windows 5 Vis Master Hunting Blind Simple Setup & Tear Down
The worst part about any blind is the setup. Some blinds can be a real pain to get ready for a hunt, but the Vis Master is actually really easy to deploy. Once you do it a couple of times, you can really get this blind in and out of the bag within a couple of minutes. By the end of it, you will realize that this blind sets itself up.
To set it up, you start out of the bag by pushing out the metal nodes that are on each side of the blind. These nodes connect the poles that hold the blind up. They have enough tension to keep the blind sturdy, but that also means you might have to push a little harder than you would expect to push them out fully. Once you do, they kind of pop into place and it is obvious that you did it right. You only have to do this for three sides and the roof.
The side that has the door in it does not have a node. You will have to insert four poles yourself into this side, but it really isn’t hard. There are velcro loops and plastic snaps to hold the poles. You will put a vertical pole on each side of the door, and one more vertical pole on the far end of that face. The last pole goes horizontally above the door. One pole is yellow but otherwise, it isn’t different from the rest. I chose to place it in the middle of the blind face.
Tear down is obviously the reverse of the setup, and it isn’t hard either. I started by putting up all the windows, taking down the manually places poles, then all that is left is to push in the hubs on each side and top of the blind and shove it back into the bag! I was able to tear this blind down in just a couple of minutes.
How Much Space Does The Vis Master Blind Have?
One thing everyone will love about this blind is that it has plenty of room! When you get it opened up, it takes up a 70-inch by 70-inch area on the ground and is 80 inches high. So most of us can stand up in the center without a problem. I am 5 foot, 10 inches, and I can stand in the middle of the Vis Master with my arms spread out to each side without even coming close to touching the sides.
It would be really easy to hunt with two people in this blind, and if you wanted to, you could hunt with three without bumping elbows too often. It also helps that you can see through most of the blind, so when you have alot of people inside, you don’t have to get around each other to see out of the blind. All and all, it is a very spacious blind. Although, that comes at the cost of a 25-pound package, but with the carry strap on the case, it isn’t too hard to lug into the woods.
With all the space in this blind, you can bring a few goodies in with you. I have an entire article about what you could bring with you in a hunting blind, check it out here.
How Does it Look?
The first thing I was concerned about with a see-through blind is how it would look from the outside. Surprisingly, the material looks solid from just a few feet away. I tired my best to get all the angles and see if there was some way to see through it from the outside, of course, this material is solid from the outside.
I also like the basic camo pattern. It blends in most American landscapes and I am a firm believer that camo should be boring instead of the newest high tech pattern thats ugly and over engineered. This blind will not be too tough to brush in since it also has external straps to help you secure limbs to it. The only down side is that this is a big blind, which can make it harder to tuck into a tree line.
Blind Noise and Movement
TideWe put some effort into keeping this blind quiet. They replaced all the usual zippers or velcro with quiet plastic sliders. The only zipper is on the door, and you can be quite with it if you try to be. They are also pretty proud of their “no-trip” door. In plain english, it means the door goes all the way to the ground, so you don’t have to step over anything. That is nice, but I am not sure it is as much of a selling point as they think it is. Unlike the plastic sliders for the windows, they make augmenting the blind easy during a hunt instead of being scared to make a noise.
Here is a quick video I made showing that you can make a good amount of noise with these sliders if you are going crazy with them, but if you use them slowly, they hardly make a noise.
I have brought up the size of the blind a few times already, but again, the size of the Vis Master ground blind makes it easier for you to move around during your hunt without the worry of bumping into anything. I have hit the walls of smaller blinds while trying to manuver a rifle from one window to another, perking every deers ears up for a hundred yards. Now thats my own fault, but the roomier blind, makes it easier to be quiet, even if you are clumsy.
Visibility in the Vis Master Blind
Does Vis Master mean Visibility Master? I don’t know, but it’s catchy enough. You can see pretty well out of this big blind. You get three big windows on each of the see-through sides, and one smaller window on the door side. The see-through material is obviously the big talk about this blind, TideWe was not the first to invent it, but it sure does work well.
Although the see-through material isn’t magic. You can easily see deer that wouldn’t be visible through your window if they were up close, but things get a little fuzzy behind that material. If you are hunting a field, you will be able to see movement for hundreds of yards through this material, but if you are in the woods, I found it tough to see a lot of detail past around 50 yards.
Even in the dense woods of Georgia and other Eastern states, it isn’t uncommon for me to see and even shoot deer over 75 yards away in the woods. I routinely see the butt of a deer or ear through a little pocket in the woods over a hundred yards away in my tree stand. You lose that if you are only looking through the side of this blind, so it isn’t the best thing ever, but I much rather have this see-through material than an opaque blind where I might not notice quite deer that didn’t walk directly infront of my blind’s window.
All and all, when I was sitting in this blind, I felt like I could see extremely well. The windows are nice and big, so you can configure those however you want, and I rather have the see-through material than not have it for the sake a visibility, but this type of material removes some other benefits of ground blinds, like weather proofing and scent control.
Vis Master Ground Blind Durability, Weather Proofing & Scent Control
The good news about the TideWe Vis Master Ground Blind material is that it feels thick and durable. As much as I would like to say that this 300 Denier blind is a rugged as can be, I have only been using it a few months. It just came out, and we won’t really know how it holds up for a few years. If I have any updates in the future, I will be sure to come back and update this section, but for now, know that this material is thick and feels like a quality blind.
Adding to the durability and weather proofing is a blaze orange cap for the top. I guess this is nice to have if you are worried about other hunters, but I am not sure if I like using it. I don’t believe that this blaze orange will satisfy your DNR’s blaze orange requirements since it is not on your person. Plus, the debate rages on if deer can see blaze orange or not.
I wrote an entire article about blaze orange and if deer could see it, the science says one thing and experience says the other. Check it out here if you are curious.
While the orange topper helps to keep water out, the top of the blind is already water proof. I poured water on it for a while just to watch it bead off. However, those see-through sides are about as water proof as a tennis racket. Water goes straight throught he holes that make it see-through. You can imagine that wind also goes right though it, and blocking the wind is a bonus of ground blind over something like a tree stand.
I also went on a rant one time about how ground blinds can help with scent control due to their thick materials and the fact that solid ones block wind and would contain more scent. The idea being your scent would be more contained and therefore less of it makes its way to the deer. Although if the wind goes through this blind, so does your scent. Check out that scent control article here.
Still, the see-through material is pretty neat. Everything is a trade off. TideWe also makes a version of this blind that only has see-through material on the upper half of the blind faces. If you want more wind blocking and scent retention, that version may be worth a look. Plus, it comes with a couple of extra pockets for you to shove get into.
At the end of the day, if you keep your scent controlled with regular methods, and you dress as warmly as you should, the see-though material on the TideWe Vis Master is neat. I have enjoyed using this blind during the early season, and it may make a come back later in the season for me after I am done jumping around white oak patches in my climber stand. If you are looking for a solid blind, the TideWe Vis Master is a great choice.
