stands vs ground blinds

I have to agree this season has not been what I thought it was going to be so far. A new blind sticks out pretty well, I'd try to get it in some cover and brush it in. The thing I dislike the most about them is the loss of vision around the area, however it beats not being out there!

I put acorn powder on mine, but can't say that it helped, because I don't know the difference. They did seem cautious around it, but they get use to it. I did put natural brush and limbs on and around it. I actually store my hunting clothes with acorn powder.

Put it up as soon as possible; I'll help if you need it.

Scent away spray works on blinds too. Like anything else, it needs to look like it belongs. We set two blinds with cameras and it's been nonstop deer and turkey starting the same afternoon. I got 8 different bucks on one, including a 10 point pushing 140 and a 150+ 9 point on the other. One 2 days one 4 days after we set them.

I'm a dinosaur.

Just a WILD guess but "close",(and I feel conservative) I've shot MORE THAN 50 deer sitting on a bucket or stool, back to a tree, being careful to have something breaking my outline in as many directions as I can imagine........and I don't feel I'm sacrificing MUCH, OTHER THAN how far I can see one coming.

Little bugger CAN walk right up on you!! (In a tree stand too of course, just saying).

A stickler to have my face blackened. Anyone finding any Tink's Camo Dust laying dusty on the shelf somewhere LET ME KNOW. I mix all four colors and it comes out charcoal(ish) and has worked for what? 3 decades? 4? I forget.

Now for the part that will raise eyebrows. I have shot as many with a plaid jacket on as with camo BUT.......HIGH CONTRAST plaid OR camo. The darks need to be WAY darker and the lights WAY lighter. Even black and almost white works ok as far as I am concerned. Yep, I HAVE camo, most of it worn this time of year just because its what I have for colder/windy/rainy weather.

Even "worse"? I smoke. (Yeah , yeah...I KNOW I KNOW, gotta stop but DOWNWIND IS DOWNWIND!) But the POINT I am going to make is that I have had to drop a cig and put my boot on it more times than I can remember to pick up my longbow/recurve/ML...handgun.whatever to whack one. Drives my buddy INSANE that I "get by with that". I have no explanation other than something lots laugh at me when I say it (but that's ok too. :-) ) and that is this:

Faith. I have faith in high contrast colors or hues, large pattern, outline being broken up and moving SLOWLY if I must (or just want to). IMO, when the wind IS BLOWING (like lately?) something NOT moving is as scary to a deer as something moving slowly. ** THEY DON'T SEE ME BECAUSE I DON'T THINK THEY WILL**. Kind of a power of positive thinking thing? Who knows.

Yes, yes.....I will have doubters, I will have those scoffing at me for this but it is the truth.
Three deer last year (didn't bow hunt though due to health), in four days during gun season. Never even got in a stand THAT year. Year before that? one with a bow, one with a gun from a stand (but THAT ONE SAW ME), Year before that, Buck while leaning against a tree in a lane, Year before, buck and a doe with a recurve, sitting on a bucket half under a low limb and against the truck, and on, and on. My memory is horrible, LOL. This year I had 3 does at less than 20 yards bowhunting but they came STRAIGHT from upwind and I was NOOOOOOOOOOOOT expecting that and wasn't set up for that direction since on my right and I am right handed.

Cover? Tree to my left, pair of 10 inch logs running diagonally beside me. Jeans and a baseball cap, predator jacket, light weight (lots of pockets!! LOL)........sitting on a stool, and yes I had a cigarette lit when I first saw them at 20-22 yards, put it out, got the bow picked up, got half turned...till the second doe nailed me. If NOT on my right? I would have had a shot since wouldn't have had to turn 90 degrees.

Whole point here is sitting on something comfy on the ground, or just standing by a tree has worked for many, many, many generations. For us old timers, we can remember when "tree stands" came to be but........

WE KILLED DEER BEFORE THAT WITH MUCH INFERIOR HUNTING WEAPONS, BOTH bow and gun so obviously?>>> Hunting "au natural" will work and I make you a promise. IT'S SO exciting that still today it is my bread and butter for having fun out there. I'll hunt a stand some here soon but when the leaves are gone?

BACK TO THE GROUND for me. I respectfully refer you to my signature line. Such is a way of life for me, in the woods..and out.

God Bless!!

I've shot some young ones, and also some 2.5-3.5 year old bucks and does (CO's guess, not mine). A buck older than 2.5 years old IN MY AREA......is a FREAK, I don't bother "looking" for one so yes, the "average" I've taken probably runs closer to 1.5 year old but IMO.....an old DOE is still the hardest beastie for me to take from the ground.

I've had NICE bucks (two were killed by a friend a few days later, both over 145 inch) at LESS THAN 15 yards but unable to shoot due to something "just not right yet" and passed up one of them again "3 minutes before shooting time...broadside, 12 yards *puff* *pant*, *GASP*. LOL.

I am, literally, a "meat hunter" and while a big old hog of a buck is NICE? Hardly my quest for any season but I've had such OCCASIONALLY in range over the years but IMO, the rarity is more due to lack OF them rather than what I am doing.

In a ONE MILE SQUARE where I hunt I KNOW OF 15 hunters. Getting "old" is not a common thing for bucks OR does here. Hand in hand I will also say that NONE of them are to be considered "stupid", BECAUSE OF the pressure they endure.

Bottom line on big bucks is one has to be willing to PASS UP a buck not QUITE YET a big one. Tag soup doesn't do a thing for me and taking an average buck early HAS cost me a big buck years past, but I felt no regret. One, (IMHO) should NEVER regret taking a wild animal..or shoot AT one as some kind of "consolation prize" I am not only content but quite happy with a buck taken "on my terms"......."in his livingroom". How each measures "success" has many types of yardsticks.

2 cents.
God Bless

Short note: The biggest buck I've ever seen in this woods over the decades was a true HOG. The sonovagun almost RAN OVER ME chasing does! TWICE! I couldn't get him under 20 yards .....and less than 100 mph!

LOL! Naa.....not THAT "natural".....I scare off enough with clothes on, not to mention anyone seeing me going hunting.

I don't have that much Camo Dust either!!

Guess that didn't QUITE come out super accurately At my age......it just has a different meaning it seems.

Gotta laugh at myself though for such dumb statements.

God Bless

LOL.........TELL ME THAT WASN'T EXCITING! As said, they CAN walk right up on you!

You can't see in all directions but you'll start looking in a different process.

For me what has worked is something, as mentioned that breaks my outline.......but I can PEEK AROUND. RARELY is my entire outline covered but only part of it.

Been there done that. The 146 3/8 inch buck my son's buddy killed during shotgun stood about 8 yards from me one rainy day with only his rib cage (naturally) covered by a tree. I hadn't seen him coming (STRAIGHT behind that tree but heard him)and was ready but at that yardage, in the rain, one's scent will get you sooner or later........and it did. He LOOKED but didn't see me (my opinion) but had his nose going and slowly slipped back into the thicket of paw paws.

Nope, didn't get him but I'll stick with DANG THAT WOULDA BEEN A WHOPPER with my ol longbow AT THAT RANGE.

More doable than a lot think (again IMO) Back when I had this woods to myself, I set up for, and hunted one particular buck. I thought I ran a pretty good average successfully doing so about half the time.

From the ground.

NOT saying its "better", I'm saying it's more doable than most think and saying so because I've done it, dozens of times and OFTEN at VERY close range. Had I been shooting a compound back then, the success ratio would have been expected to be higher since with trad equipment I limit my shots to 25 yards (ish).

It's a learning process as all of it is, I'm tickled you had the action you had and felt a bit of what I feel hunting is ALL ABOUT using the method I prefer the most.

It's NOT for everyone. Most prefer getting any advantage they can get, regardless of how or how much. Nothing wrong with that. Without such, manufacturers would go broke. :-)

There is a much seen quote online. "Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." I have simply found similar feeling for my deer hunting.

While God Willing, the next two deer I take will make my "total" 100 deer and just a number, its not the number of them that feeds fond memories even though all were fun.

It's the ones that had me white-knuckling my bow, holding my breath, nerves fiddle string tight that are so ingrained in my memories that I can LITERALLY.............can still see the arrow spin in my memories of them.

Hunt. Whatever it takes to do so. I may be hitch hiking to the woods this week the way things look.
Hunt how YOU like to hunt. Regardless who says what (including me). It is your satisfaction you seek to find. How that happens is measured only with the yardstick of your own choice and you answer to no one.

There is TWO kinds of RUT I see each fall.

One is when deer mate.....the other is habits I watch people follow, year after year after year, more often than not with the same disappointing results. We hunt one of the most adaptable animals of this earth. Adapting to their habitat and where they go the best we can is a normal reaction for me. Some agree, some do not. Such is the way of the world.

God bless

Both of my biggest bucks were harvested from the ground after I got down out of my tree stand and changed plans. Sometimes, you have to make it happen and go for broke.

If you need any help at all; I'll be happy to help you.   I'll pull you in a wheelchair where you want to be and come back to pick you up ...whatever you need.