“BLIND PLACEMENT”

It was a bright sunny afternoon in mid-February and conveniently, I had scheduled a job working in the Blackwater Forest. It was post-rut and the National Forest had shut down, so there wasn’t any hunting pressure. The woods were quiet, and I decided to ease to my shooting house and check out my food plot that afternoon. I knocked off work about 2 o’clock and eased down to my plot, knowing there was a high probability the deer would be moving. I slowly eased down the bush hogged trail which led to my shooting house. On my approach, I was thinking it was a good thing I was camouflaged by the undergrowth growing just in front of my deer blind, which was about head high. The green field fingers of my foot plot start about forty feet in front of this undergrowth. I quietly slipped into the shooting house, slightly opened the window to look and see a deer already feeding in the field. Upon second glance, thinking to myself…. “He’s a buck”! Easing the window up and tying it off, I slipped my 25-06 out the window, the crosshairs settled tight behind his shoulder, I pulled the trigger….down he went!/p>

Some important things to think about when building your shooting house are height and location. The height of this particular house is the standard six (6) feet above ground level, which is according to specifications in the Hill’s Hideout plans for tower heights (click on the SHOOTING HOUSES link at the top of this page for information about Hill’s Hideout plans). Blind heights can be altered depending upon your situation. However, I find this six (6) foot height works really well in this particular setting.

As I referenced earlier in this tip, there is underbrush; which I keep trimmed to about six (6) feet directly in front of the shooting house. This conceals my approach to and from the box blind. It is about ten (10) feet in front of the box blind, to give me a little wall before the food plot actually starts. The remaining thirty (30) feet before the green field begins is kept bush hogged, so I can see over from the inside of the shooting house. This set up is really nice because it provides cover to slip up on a buck like this one, feeding at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. It was post-rut and he was probably getting some extra green, as I had added some fertilizer about a week earlier to juice up the plot for this time of the season. It also makes it really nice in the evening when leaving the stand and there are still deer on the field; one can slip out without being noticed, therefore, not spooking the resident herd and allowing them to become wise to the house. If you use the shooting house quite often, this set up helps prevent the deer from becoming house shy. You could also build a little wall right in front of the shooting house, almost like a privacy fence to conceal your comings and goings.

Just something to think about! A little tip to consider when you construct your next shooting house/box blind. Keep in mind, each situation is different…so allow for those variations.