Ed Askew
Well-known member
I've been very frustrated this season and last trying to kill ducks in soybean fields. I had figured out how to murder them in rice fields, as I made a blind for the Kara that absolutely disappeared in rice stubble. Bean fields have got nothing at all you can hide in. Or so I thought anyway.
I don't think I've seen a single rice field in southeastern Arkansas this season. They're growing beans and corn. The corn fields get mowed down to an inch or so of nothing to hide in really. Bean stubble is nothing. I've tried killing them from the turnrows and they're too smart to come near any of those. So I figured either I invent a cloaking device, or go fishin'.
Turns out on closer inspection, there are a few weeds in those fields. Not enough to hide in, but maybe enough to break up the pattern of the water. The water is dark and the weeds are light. So what I did was to buy the darkest camo pattern burlap they had at Academy. I made a second blind frame, just like my blind for the rice field, with a T -top to go over me and the dog which attaches to my headrest. I attached the burlap to these frames. I had ordered the dark brown raffia from J. Stern. After attaching plastic fence material to the burlap with cable ties, I ran the dark brown (this stuff is darker than mahogany; it's about the color of beachnut chewing tobacco.) raffia through that, covering 75% of the burlap. Then once on location I cut some of the local weeds and ran a few up in the raffia, to mimic the sparse weed situation they have out in the field. Honestly I didn't think it would work, but if it didn't I wasn't going to bother to drive up there anymore and try to kill those ducks from the turnrow.
View attachment beanfieldblindt.jpg
This is what it looked like. Now I didn't murder them today. I only killed 2. I wished I had had it all together yesterday as there were a lot more ducks around yesterday then today. I didn't have much confidence in this working so I tried another hunt from the turnrow yesterday, and despite all the ducks killed only one. And that one was my first duck this season believe it or not, as this was only my second trip up there this season, and the first trip was when the place was froze solid and the ducks were drinking Mai Tai's on the beach on the my brother's lease in S. Louisiana. Anyway they were coming into my spread. I haven't shot from the layout in almost a year, and had my gun hanging up on one of the doors and had my timing all off and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn at first, but finally got it together and managed to kill a couple. The deal is that the blind really worked and I was pleasantly surprise that it did. If you're trying to hide in beanfield, you might try this.
Ed.
I don't think I've seen a single rice field in southeastern Arkansas this season. They're growing beans and corn. The corn fields get mowed down to an inch or so of nothing to hide in really. Bean stubble is nothing. I've tried killing them from the turnrows and they're too smart to come near any of those. So I figured either I invent a cloaking device, or go fishin'.
Turns out on closer inspection, there are a few weeds in those fields. Not enough to hide in, but maybe enough to break up the pattern of the water. The water is dark and the weeds are light. So what I did was to buy the darkest camo pattern burlap they had at Academy. I made a second blind frame, just like my blind for the rice field, with a T -top to go over me and the dog which attaches to my headrest. I attached the burlap to these frames. I had ordered the dark brown raffia from J. Stern. After attaching plastic fence material to the burlap with cable ties, I ran the dark brown (this stuff is darker than mahogany; it's about the color of beachnut chewing tobacco.) raffia through that, covering 75% of the burlap. Then once on location I cut some of the local weeds and ran a few up in the raffia, to mimic the sparse weed situation they have out in the field. Honestly I didn't think it would work, but if it didn't I wasn't going to bother to drive up there anymore and try to kill those ducks from the turnrow.
View attachment beanfieldblindt.jpg
This is what it looked like. Now I didn't murder them today. I only killed 2. I wished I had had it all together yesterday as there were a lot more ducks around yesterday then today. I didn't have much confidence in this working so I tried another hunt from the turnrow yesterday, and despite all the ducks killed only one. And that one was my first duck this season believe it or not, as this was only my second trip up there this season, and the first trip was when the place was froze solid and the ducks were drinking Mai Tai's on the beach on the my brother's lease in S. Louisiana. Anyway they were coming into my spread. I haven't shot from the layout in almost a year, and had my gun hanging up on one of the doors and had my timing all off and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn at first, but finally got it together and managed to kill a couple. The deal is that the blind really worked and I was pleasantly surprise that it did. If you're trying to hide in beanfield, you might try this.
Ed.