The Blind---

Al Hansen

Al Hansen

Well-known member
Reading Wis Boz's thread about 28 gauge shotguns made me think of something I have done over the past three years. Each year I find myself doing it more and more. When I wrote the title, The Blind, I was just being facetious.
Some years ago I was talking with my waterfowl biologist friend one morning during a teal hunt. I had asked him questions about the color ducks see and about inanimate objects. Tim and I had a great discussion and after that I began my quest to find out more about ducks.
In the picture below is how I hunted 3 days during our recent 9 day season. I sat in my chair with Chili to my side in the wide open. The only thing I do is make sure that I have a backdrop of some sort. At this spot there was an embankment. In fact this is the very spot, I believe, where I had hunkered down in the weeds and had the snake for a companion for almost two hours.
Anyway, Chili and I will just sit motionless and so far I have never had a problem with ducks coming in. I'm a firm believer in "inanimate objects" when duck hunting. Last year I tried it again but in January when the big ducks had been shot at for at least 4 months. It worked again. In fact I had my Kawasaki Mule 15 feet behind my chair.
Is there anyone else on this site that has done something like this when hunting ducks? Just curious.
Al

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We've just leaned up against a rock while shore hunting on Lake Michigan. Not quite the wide open. We've talked about just getting stools and sitting out in the decoys.
 
Some guys here will hunt just sitting on a bucketin open water next to the spread. You basically look like a stump or log. It works.
I think the high profile of blinds in open water and movements in the blinds are what spooks the birds.
 
Hunting the breakwall on Lake Erie we noticed later season ducks landing in front of fishermen dressed in orange rain gear and staying away from decoys. We tried it the next time out and took a limit of divers and a bucket full of perch. Didn't take long before they wised up, but it worked.
 
100%...the best blind is no blind...look at the early duck commander videos...sitting on buckets by trees...when we sea duck hunt we do not put the blind up a lot of the time...just stay still


here are two pictures...one sea duck hunting no blind up at all..Th other we are diver duck hunting with the short blind up




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Most places I hunt we have the advantage of lots of shoreline trees, and we generally sit on a bucket or stool on the shoreline. It would be hard to beat the "blind" created by a shoreline covered in spruce, fir and hemlock. Often our problem is not being able to see out to the decoys!

On the coast, a camo-ed hunter looks like another big rock--although I am waiting for someone to market Advantage/Seclusion/Max4 Seeweed Camo. (LOL)

The only places I hunt where I think I want more cover are salt marsh and late season rice flats. My best strategy there has been to hunt lower tides and try to blend in with a cut bank or high edge of grass. High tide on the salt marsh--it would be nice to have a blind. But those high tides bring birds into the far back corners of the marsh where you can find trees or scrub/shrub to hide in.

But I have a feeling that I'd feel "naked" hunting the landscapes where Al is. I like my overhead cover when I can get it.
 
Al,

Reminds me of what I always tell guys who deer hunt and talk camo patterns and such: Fred Bear killed many a deer with a recurve bow wearing red plaid and sitting still.

I used to joke back in NC about putting a shotgun in with the rods on the deck of my bass boat! Ducks would avoid decoys and land real close to a bass boat!
 
Al,
I have hunted many times out in the bay, sitting on a muck chair or standing in the decoys. Sure it works...at times. I will say that when the flocks come by, you will get the immature ones or the Newbies but the mature adults usually swing past outside of range. Later in the season, they all seem to flair. That said, this is hunting pretty exposed, the old "dick on a dog" thing. What you are talking about, is a backdrop, as in break up your profile. I find that breaking up the profile is MORE important than hiding behind or undersomething, of course movement is still king of all...

my early season blind was to sit on the edge of 12' high phragmites, maybe 2-3 strands in front of me at best. It worked until one of the kids with us would point out ducks........
 
Last season on two hunts me and Stan Hillis sat on the ground near a pond in the bull rushes no blind or anything and shot our limits of ringnecks and gadwalls. . And one hunt Mr. Stan sat on a stump in the middle of the decoys and we limited out on woodies and gadwalls and one mallard, that was the last day of the Ga season
 
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