Ground Blinds for Spring Gobblers

Any time you have time is the best time to hunt your ground blind; however, my best success from inside has come either mid-morning – NOTE: To be more specific here, two to three hours after fly-down, once the birds have started to either wander throughout their range, or the gobblers find themselves alone with hens having gone to nest – or mid-afternoon, when activity seems to pick up. That all said, I’ve sat a blind from before daylight with success, and I’ve stayed inside until after dark and the birds have gone to roost. Much of this timing is situational; rather, the time to be in the blind depends on the hide’s location. Two hundred yards from a roost along a known travel route and it’s best to be set and ready before daylight. A strut zone opposite the roost and at the other end of the property? It might be noon before he gets there.

I’m 50/50 on the use of turkey decoys; sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t. It all depends on the situation, the bird, the time of year, the pressure, and other variables. From a ground blind, however, I always use decoys. Tucked away inside a blind, I have the luxury of time and concealment. I’m in no hurry, and often, I’ll enjoy encounters with multiple gobblers over the course of a morning, not all of which, it’s hoped, will ignore my decoy presentation.

What sort of decoys? How many? For a friend shooting a homemade longbow and hand-carved cedar shafts, I set a dozen decoys in front of our blind. The spread, as he called it, consisted of a full strut gobbler, two jakes off to one side, and nine hens in various body postures – upright, feeding, walking, dusting/breeding – scattered around randomly, none of which were more than 10 steps from the windows. When Shaun arrowed his gobbler that morning, the tom was standing atop the now-flattened full strut decoy at five yards.

There are times when multiple decoys can do the trick in the spring, and being able to hide eight to 12 fakes in a set blind, without having to pack them from place to place throughout the morning, is quite a convenience. Still, and short of a flock of plastic birds around the hide, I’ll always set one or two – often just a pair of relaxed hens – at a distance appropriate for the shotgun or archery equipment being used.

The particulars here, i.e. modern shotgun, muzzleloader, long bow, or crossbow, begin with becoming familiar with the ground blind itself, and that prior to the first hunt. This includes your choice of seating, as well. Stool? Swivel stool? Lawn chair? Comfort is important, as you might be sitting for quite some time. Quiet, too, as metallic creaks and groans are anything but natural in the wild turkey’s world.

The only way to determine the answers to these questions is to set the chair or, if hunting with a partner, the chairs, and experiment with your weapon of choice. How far into the rear of the blind must the chairs be in order to provide sufficient room to maneuver? Can you reposition your shotgun from window to window quickly and easily, if need be? And archery equipment? Have you practiced drawing and shooting accurately from a seated position? Where does the seat need to be so that upon release, the limbs don’t contact the blind itself? All of these questions can, and should, be answered before the first sit in the blind. They’re easy; they just need to be done.

The acoustics of turkey calling from inside a ground blind, to the uninitiated, are going to be frightening, each yelp sounding as though it were coming from a 300-pound hen. Can the sounds coming from the interior of a blind be too loud? I’m sure they can, particularly if a gobbler is close; however, when calling to unseen birds from a blind, I’ve not had a problem in terms of sound quality or volume.

It does make sense that the sounds coming from a blind are much more directional than those created in a non-blind scenario; that is, sound comes from a blind, more or less, via the windows in the direction of the windows. But is this all that relevant? Given a gobbler’s extraordinary hearing, I don’t believe so. And herein lies one of the cardinal rules of turkey hunting, blind or no – Never underestimate how well a wild turkey can hear, and how precisely he can pinpoint your location down to the square foot.

To me, the biggest benefit of using a ground blind for spring gobblers isn’t so much the concealment factor, which can be excellent, but the blind’s role as an educational and opportunistic tool. Ground blinds are perfect for introducing young or inexperienced hunters to the wild turkey in as controlled and forgiving an environment as is possible. Blinds are great for those not possessing the ability to sit still, as they provide a ‘movement margin of error’ not enjoyed by those sitting in The Great Wide Open. These tools, too, offer the ideal way to get physically challenged hunters afield, particularly those confined to wheelchairs, without any inconvenience.

Love them or hate them; there’s no denying the fact that among turkey hunters, the ground blind is here and here to stay. And with good reason – They work.