Crow Busters Forum

Crow Down · Veteran Member

Open v.s closed blinds

M12Shooter · Guru

Open above, for myself I like a small blind about chin high.

Ted

Mainehunt · Guru

Crowdown,

Similar to Ted, I like a blind that's just big enough for me and whoever I'm hunting with. Chin high is great with a face mask/headnet to hide our faces.

I used an enclosed pop-up blind just once and didn't care for it at all. Too restrictive.

When I build a blind along fence-rows or the edge of timber, I stretch a couple strands of wire (I keep a roll of electric fence wire and a pair of lineman's pliers in my truck during crow season.) over the top/back edge of the blind about six and a half feet above the ground and about 2 feet apart. I then lay pine boughs and other leafy branches on these wires as a make-shift roof. When I stand under these branches, I can easily look through them to see the crows above, but the limbs are hiding me and most movements. When I'm ready to take the shot, I just lean forward and BOOM.

Kev

Crow Down · Veteran Member

Kev,

That's what I don't like about the closed blinds either. Some of the shots you'd love to take you can't. Size is an issue to because I'd like to have some of my friends hunt with me, and I let alone more people could barely fit in the doghouse blind. What do you use for the actual blind? I like the overhead branch idea!

Thanks,
Julian

Lone Star Phil · Senior Member

The Texas Crow Patrol has tried natural blinds, commercial blinds and ad-lib blinds but we're a mobile bunch (maybe not as much as the run-and-gun guys in the North Caroline Crow Patrol) and place a lot of importance in tactical displacements of our gun elements to address flight patterns, sunlight, wind, decoy and caller performance.

As a decidely casual observation, after we set up our initial decoy and caller placements, pick out and establish our gun pits, the odds that we'll all be in those gun pits surrounded by empty hulls at the end of the shoot is less than 10%.

Phil

-- Edited by Lone Star Phil on Wednesday 29th of May 2013 11:42:36 AM

needmorebacon · Veteran Member

I also like the overhead blinds, I use old radar scattering blind material from old army supply shops. I got mine in a 20 Ft roll and about 6ft high so I can wrap around a few limbs and shoot out of the top or in front if need be.

BTW Julian saw u said your from Ohio..what part?

Bob · Guru

Crow Down,

If you are hunting at this time of year with plenty of leaves on the trees you don't need a blind, there is plenty of natural cover in which to hide yourself.

Makeshift blinds work pretty well so long as you have enough cover to break up your outline.

Here are two photos of a makeshift blind and an open top blind. Both are open on top.

Bob A.

Old Artilleryman · Guru

I have a doghouse blind that is too worn to use for deer or turkey, from which I am going to try to cut the top away. My theory is that it will be very portable and easy to setup and also to augment with some brush. I'll be able to sit within on my spinner seat and see well enough to get them as they approach. Will let everyone know how this develops.

Craig

Mainehunt · Guru

Crow Down wrote:
Kev,

That's what I don't like about the closed blinds either. Some of the shots you'd love to take you can't. Size is an issue to because I'd like to have some of my friends hunt with me, and I let alone more people could barely fit in the doghouse blind. What do you use for the actual blind? I like the overhead branch idea!

Thanks,
Julian

For the main blind I take a pair of loppers and a pair of pruning snips and I cut brush, small trees and tree limbs to form the outside walls. Most of the time, we build the blind on the edge of woods or a tree/fence line. I make the outside wall in a shallow curved shape. I like to cut the brush/branches/trees so the cut is at a sharp angle so I can push it into the ground. Then I take some of that wire and reinforce the wall and then add more brush and pull up dead grass, weeds, etc. and add to it. Like Phil Robertson the Duck Commander says, "You can't have too much brush on a blind."

I think you just need to use your imagination and make the blind look natural and the same color as the surrounding terrain. Last winter I had fantastic luck sitting in the middle of a 400 acre field in an igloo. There was no other cover fort several hundred yards and with all the hunting pressure, the crows would not approach decoys on the wood edges. So I built an igloo to hide in and wore white clothing.

Igloo blind closeup.png

Here is a photo of my blind I built to hide 3 of us. On the edge of the woods, we killed a lot of crows out of it over a 2 month time period.

Here is the same photo, re-sized, I circled the blind. The tiny red dot marks approximately 5 feet, 6 inches above the ground. The box is showing the height and placement of the wires that hold branches over our heads. Almost all of the "decoys" are freshly killed crows with a stick shoved up their butt and stuck in the ground. Best decoys available in my opinion.

blind with arrow:circle.png

Crow Down · Veteran Member

Tuscarawas County, south of canton. You?

Crow Down · Veteran Member

Bob wrote:
Crow Down,

If you are hunting at this time of year with plenty of leaves on the trees you don't need a blind, there is plenty of natural cover in which to hide yourself.

Makeshift blinds work pretty well so long as you have enough cover to break up your outline.

Here are two photos of a makeshift blind and an open top blind. Both are open on top.

Bob A.

Thanks Bob, both of those look really good! I think I'll give the natural look a try smile

Crow Down · Veteran Member

Mainehunt wrote:
Crow Down wrote:
Kev,

That's what I don't like about the closed blinds either. Some of the shots you'd love to take you can't. Size is an issue to because I'd like to have some of my friends hunt with me, and I let alone more people could barely fit in the doghouse blind. What do you use for the actual blind? I like the overhead branch idea!

Thanks,
Julian
For the main blind I take a pair of loppers and a pair of pruning snips and I cut brush, small trees and tree limbs to form the outside walls. Most of the time, we build the blind on the edge of woods or a tree/fence line. I make the outside wall in a shallow curved shape. I like to cut the brush/branches/trees so the cut is at a sharp angle so I can push it into the ground. Then I take some of that wire and reinforce the wall and then add more brush and pull up dead grass, weeds, etc. and add to it. Like Phil Robertson the Duck Commander says, "You can't have too much brush on a blind."
I think you just need to use your imagination and make the blind look natural and the same color as the surrounding terrain. Last winter I had fantastic luck sitting in the middle of a 400 acre field in an igloo. There was no other cover fort several hundred yards and with all the hunting pressure, the crows would not approach decoys on the wood edges. So I built an igloo to hide in and wore white clothing.
Here is a photo of my blind I built to hide 3 of us. On the edge of the woods, we killed a lot of crows out of it over a 2 month time period.
Here is the same photo, re-sized, I circled the blind. The tiny red dot marks approximately 5 feet, 6 inches above the ground. The box is showing the height and placement of the wires that hold branches over our heads. Almost all of the "decoys" are freshly killed crows with a stick shoved up their butt and stuck in the ground. Best decoys available in my opinion.

Kev, haha I really like the igloo, if we would of had enough snow here in ohio; I would of had my little brothers help me make it. Close enough to a snowman right lol. Thanks, I think Ill go with the natural look now!

needmorebacon · Veteran Member

Crow Down wrote:
Tuscarawas County, south of canton. You?

Washington County, Around Marietta

Elkhunter · Senior Member

M12Shooter wrote:
Open above, for myself I like a small blind about chin high.

Ted

What he said. I use a hoop blind with camo and limb up the limb to give it some depth. Works great.

Redditch · Guru

Generally Open above, but tight to a hedge or tree. Sometimes I'll use a closed one, but prefer open.

M12Shooter · Guru

Attached a photo of my style of blind. I find they don't have to be overly cammoed but more to break ones profile and movement. The blind pictured is roughly chin high on myself, a simple wood frame which is loosely wrapped in burlap. Being in the shade is very important as well. One has to take this and the movement of the sun into account before setting up.

Ted

motiondecoy · Guru

just remember that trees tend to push the crows up too. I've heard the complaint "no overhead cover"..okay then get one of those goose blinds that you lay flat but one thing here to watch out for is to keep the doors open and probably cover yourself with camouflage resembling what ever the ground is for example use "corn stubble" loose blind material but also watch out for the wind but over all if you yourself are properly camouflaged you can pull it off.... I wouldn't do it like a goose hunter though..you'd want to be a little ways from the decoys meaning don't sit amongst them in my opinion. I use natural cover myself but I also dress the background.

One trick I have used is to have the trees at my back where the crows are coming from and standing under the trees completely camouflaged accordingly and shooting them when they come in to the decoys.

I have hidden in corn rows-not my favorite however-BUT it works!

The bottom line? Blend IN period.

crow187 · Veteran Member

I love seeing the different kinds of blinds from across the country. You folks rock! Here in TN. were are cursed with privet hedge. It infests our fencerows and riverbanks, and takes fields over a few inches a year. These bushes don't grow very high, but they are dense with a lot of small, dark green oval shaped leaves. The privet hedge bushes keep a lot of their follage all year long. To make the best of a bad situation, I carry a very heavy, long bladed bowie knife that I use to cut a blind out of a fencerow with. I usually construct it with the morning sun behind my right shoulder, with good cover behind me and to either side. Front cover is chest high, and I like to keep a 5-gal. bucket made into a "sportsman's seat" to sit on when I'm not shooting. I make an exit trail to one side to go out and tend my decoys. Surprisingly, these blinds last from one year to the next if you trim them back from the inside, and top off the front ant sides. I guess we all take advantage of whatever we have the most of.

M12Shooter · Guru

Crow187, we have an invasive shrub here in Manitoba, Canada that is called European Buckthorn. I forms dense stands that are impenetrable by man nor beast!

Ted

motiondecoy · Guru

Ghillie suit would be ideal except i noticed that a good camouflage sheet matching your terrain over you will work pretty good too but there is a problem with it called too much wind. So you dress like your surroundings but a portable blind is the best -again-a nice terrain matching camouflage sheet of whatever but don't forget to keep your face and hands cammied too.

Another cheap and dirty method so to speak is a camo umbrella you might attach to a tree....and never ever forget to wear some kind of hearing protection or you'll wind up deafer than a door knob.