field hunting w/ layout blinds question

[Anatidae]

..........IN FACT! .......... (Geez, does this guy ever shut-up? )........hay bales come-in extremely handy when there's a blowing snow.



They keep the snow off you and your equipment and offer a realistic place to hide because of the fact that the ground on the downwind side of the drift still has vegetation on it (most of the time).......and you don't have to 'snow' your blind. A snow cover in this situation wouldn't work too well next to the downwind side of a hay bale.

We just put the blinds together and left a space between us for Sprig. The ducks bombed that field. Actually, I found the field about 8:00 that morning, found the owner's house, got permission, went back to the hotel to get our gear, set-up in the field, and started hunting around 11:30a.m.
I couldn't believe how wave after wave of ducks came off the lake below us. They would feed in different parts of the field, then fly bakc to sit on the lake, only to be replaced by another wave of hungry birds. This went-on all afternoon, but we were 'done' in about an hour. Very memorable hutning experience.

There was a neighbor that saw the birds and got permission to hunt the same field. We didn't know he was out there until he came walking up the hill to ask if we would take the dog and help him find a couple of his birds that fell in some cover. I apologized for not knowing he was there and said we'd pick-up and leave. He said he knew we had been given permission and came-out to hunt a different part of the field.......that it would be better for all of us if there were a couple of groups of hunters in the field to keep the birds from grouping in a part of the field no one was 'at'. Hey......'worked for us......and we all had a great time. Wytrykusz was his name, I think , (pronounced wi-TRI-kish )........he said we could just call him.....'Lawren' (short for Lawerence).......

Nice guy!......he said he'd take us to his grouse hole this year.

[tupe]

I bought some of the Cabelas brand stuff and I was very pleased with the color, quality and quantity. My blinds are, or were, field brown, but I darkend them up for my trip to the Dakotas with some textured paint.

I took the time to hand sort and tie all the grass, and even went back and retied one whole blind because it looked too dark. That being said, I also left enogh room to fill the thing in with natural cover so that it matches whatever field I hunt.

I also have extra material in several colors that stay in a rubbermaid in my rig. I have clips of them on clothespins and loose material to alter my blinds as needed.

Late season, when I am back home in MS, I will strip the blinds and repaint them with a sand colored paint to hunt the river sandbars.

Is it a lot of work, yes but, when you get brids landing beside your blind, walking over the foot bag, etc its worth every minute of it.

Tupe

[tupe]

Here is a comparison shot of the dog blinds I did. Two things to notice here.

1. The blind on the left has been mudded and painted to take some of the dark spots out. It also has clips addes to break up the center area. Normaly I just throw a handful of stubble there.

2. I left about half the loops empty to be able to fill in with natural material from the field.

[Anatidae]

That's some good-looking camo, 'Tupe'......I might have to experiement with that, this year.......'specially back home.

[Wingman]

Tupe, you did a good job with that dog blind. I have seen pics of "sand colored" layouts on sandbars and they looked spectacular.

I have often thought if you got some burgundy or maroon colored raffia or killer weed that it would look like smartweed. Mix it in with light colors to match the grass. But it don't mean a thing if you've fixed your blind with light stuff and you end up putting it in a patch of bare dirt or smartweed....you gotta adjust for every situation.

[tupe]

Thanks for the compliments.

I travel with just about every color grass and paint I feel like I could run across. Nartural is for sure the way to go, but I have hit fields where the crops were cut so clean that scraping up enough to hide would have had me picking weeds at shooting light.

A couple of things I added to my field rig this year:

3 Large plastic rakes - Make gathering stubble fast and easy.

3 pairs leather work gloves - a lot of places out west have tumbleweed in teh fields and those dang things are no fun barehanded.

2 hoes and 2 flat shovels - I don't dig pits, but I will dig my blinds down about 2-4 inches. Just that much drop can make a big differance.

Hedge trimmers - Its a lot easier to cut vegetation than pull it.

Just some ideas. I am impressed with the grass from cabelas mustly because of teh colors. Their harvest tan and brush colors are ver good looking and a real close match to most of the fields I hunt.

I carry two seperate tubs in my rig with clothespin grass filler in them, one is light, for wheat and corn, the other has green and brown for winter wheat and bean fields. With 16 - 24 clips I can make any of my blinds get real close to a dea match in just about any field.

Like I said though, when I come down home I am going to strip them so I can make them blend on the sandbars. Maybe in by next season I will have enough fo a set of blinds just for that, but for now I don't mind the work.

I'll try to dig up the photos of the Final Approach SUBs I did and post them.

Tupe

[MD11Pilot]

we gave them a little "education" on hay bales in Alberta back in September!

[GulfCoast]

zip tie your stubble or raffia to a black bungee cord. About 4 bungees will completely hide a ground blind. Six bungee cords totally hides my sneak boat. And, you can swap "bungee colors" pretty darn fast for different areas!

[jdbuckshot]

Gulf coast,

Thats a great idea, id love to see a few pictures of that!

JD

[GulfCoast]

I will try to get some taken tonight. My "picture hosting service" was Webfoot (RIP), so I will have to figure out some other way.