The Benefits of Hunting from a Ground Blind

Have you ever found the perfect spot to hunt a whitetail on opening day – perfect, except for the lack of a good tree to perch yourself in? With only immature trees or bare aspens, it can be tough to hide your hunter profile when 15 or 20 feet up in the sky. Often, you can do more harm than good by trying that approach since you could get busted and spook a deer right out of the area. That’s one of the benefits of hunting out of a ground blind. You can use one almost anywhere. Here are several other reasons you should consider hunting from a ground blind this season.

Ground Blind Benefits

While there are many ways to hunt whitetails, turkeys, or other critters, ground blinds certainly have an advantage ( or several) compared to other approaches. Here are just a few.

Spacious

If you solo hunt a lot, this might not matter as much to you. But if you like filming your hunts with a partner or hunting with your kids, it’s nice to have a little extra room. These blinds are great for hunting with kids and can be safer and allow you to get away with more, especially if you’re hunting in the woods vs a field. The Bone Collector R-600 blind by Rhino Blinds offers enough room to comfortably fit 3 or 4 hunters (or 2 hunters with tons of gear). The Bone Collector R-150 blind is ideal for the lone hunter.

Weather

It’s just no fun sitting in a tree and getting poured or snowed on during muzzleloader hunting while you’re trying to wait it out for a mature buck to come walking by. Even with the warmest, most water-repellent gear you have, everything still somehow gets wet. When you hunt in a ground blind, though, you can keep yourself and all your gear nice and dry. The R-600 blind mentioned above is constructed from triple-bond, 600 denier fabric to be durable and stand up to the elements. But for some added protection, you could spray some silicone water-repellent treatment on the top to really lock out the weather.

Concealment

As we mentioned, you can be very exposed when you’re sitting in a tree stand. Larger and gnarly trees help reduce your profile and you can use camo burlap to hide even more, but it’s tough to totally hide your movement when you’re up in the sky. A ground blind allows you to get away with much more movement. They also allow for ease of entry, you’re able to slip in and out of a ground blind without spooking deer that might be in the neighborhood.  From eating a quick snack or lifting your binoculars to glance at something, you have a much better chance of hiding in a hunting blind than you do in the open.

Scent Containment

At the same time, a ground blind offers superior scent containment opportunities. Being in a small enclosure traps more of your scent than when you are exposed outside. Some people also add scent elimination products or ozone technology to further reduce the scent coming out of the blind.

Portability

When considering a ground blind or box blind, many of the benefits apply to both. But the portability of a pop up ground blind wins in most cases. It takes a fair amount of effort and disturbance to move a box blind or even a treestand. But you can simply fold up a ground blind and move to another location without affecting the deer in your area.

Ground Blind Hunting Tactics

Now you know why you should hunt out of a ground blind, what about any ground blind best practices? You should start by practicing in your yard before the season begins. It sounds ridiculous, but it really helps to be familiar with how exactly to set up and take down your blind before you’re in the woods and need to do it quietly. Next, do some scouting to find out where you would like to hunt. Once you find a spot (see some ideas below), set it up if possible and let it air out before the season begins. Do ground blinds spook deer? Yeah, sometimes. But setting it up before the season begins and spraying it with scent elimination spray helps to mitigate some of those risks by letting deer get used to it. Here are a few hunting tactics to try out with Rhino ground blinds.

Next to the Buffet

During certain parts of the hunting season (e.g., early season and late season), bucks are more likely to be at a food source. It usually pays to be close to the action at these times, making food plots a very good choice. But it comes with a cost. You need to stay undetected or you could ruin your hunt by getting winded or noticed. That’s where a ground blind comes in handy. You could set the Bone Collector R-150 blind by Rhino Blinds up on a field edge so you’re close to it all. The blind comes in Realtree Edge camo to blend in and has several brush loops on the top and bottom to further brush it in and disappear. Just grab some branches from around you and tuck them into the loops until the windows are about all that is showing through consistently.

Make sure you can access your blind and leave it without the deer knowing you’re there. Sitting on a food plot or ag field means that deer will likely be feeding until past shooting light, so you could be left in the blind wondering how to get out. To leave stealthily, it might mean you have to move further off the field (which is doable when you’re rifle hunting from a ground blind) or have a friend approached with a truck or ATV to spook the deer off the field first (in the case of bowhunting from a ground blind). But don’t let the deer pattern you coming and going to your deer blind or that location could be compromised.

Tucked Into the Woods

Sometimes when the bucks don’t come to the food, you need to bring the hunt to them. While getting close to a daytime doe bedding area during the rut might be too risky, you can start by hunting deer trails between the bedding and food sources. Trails can be some of the best spots for deer hunting blinds because they increase your odds of seeing a deer so much. The Bone Collector R-150 blind in Realtree Timber camo is a nice option for this scenario.

Tuck it up against a natural fallen tree or log pile and brush it in with some other branches from onsite. Make sure the blind is on the predominantly downwind side of the trails or you could risk spooking deer even with the increased scent containment features of a blind. Because the Rhino 150 blind has a 270-degree window system with shoot-through mesh, you can observe the deer’s movements without them noticing yours. To further enhance this situation, try locating trails that pass through a natural pinch point or funnel, such as a swamp on either side. This will give you a little extra insurance that you should see some deer.

If you’re looking for a new perspective – ground blinds allow deer to get close since your at ground level. Shooting a buck out of a stand is awesome, but so is doing it from the ground.

If you try hunting from a ground blind this season take these tips into consideration. Also, check out the Bone Collector models of Rhino Blinds for some great deals on high-quality blinds.