Ground Blind Hunting Tips for Turkeys

JEREMY FLINN

05/04/2016

Whether it’s ground blinds, box blinds, or some sticks and branches thrown together, hunting blinds are excellent tools for hunting. When it comes to turkey hunting it’s all about getting them in the correct place.

On April 28^th a bird hit the ground! It was a successful turkey hunt and my dad’s first bird! The biggest attribute to our success was the ground blind. It easily was the deciding factor on a bird being killed. The concealment and function made this hunt not only enjoyable but nearly fool proof. Why? We set up the blind correctly and took the two biggest considerations when turkey hunting into thought….sight and sound!

The property we are hunting is a 40 acre parcel of timber and one giant ridge. It makes for the perfect turkey roost. The white and red oak ridge gives way to a 50-60 ft cliff with some areas of easier slope and a logging road ( enough for turkey and deer to walk up), and overlooks 2 large ag fields and a bottom pasture and  native grass bedding area. While that all sounds wonderful to a turkey hunter…we unfortunately are left only hunting the ridge top. This means we have to play the game with expertise to insure the turkeys fly down on the ridge and not just straight down to the ag fields like usual. This took some skill… We needed to figure out how to set up a ground blind under roosted turkeys!

We knew the birds roosted on the ridge but the exact trees would differ each night, and as seeing that nearly every tree was mature enough for roosting that pretty much meant we desperately needed to roost the birds the night before. The night before we did just that. We sit silently listening to the birds fly up, total we knew about 6-7 turkeys had roosted, 3 in a group 1 further up the ridge and 2 or 3 more on the opposite side. This basically meant wherever we would go on the 40 acres we were bound to walk under a group or single bird.

Ground Blind Set Up For Turkey Hunting

We snuck in the next night knowing the birds would roost again later that evening in the same general locations and set up the Muddy VS360 Ground Blind on the logging road leading down the hill. The exact location we set-up on was about 30 yards under the single bird and about 70 yards from the other 2 groups. We closed all the windows on the blind except one facing down the ridge towards the birds.

 We took a rake and cleared a 1ft wide trail from the truck to the blind ensuring we would be completely silent on the walk in. We also cleared a trail from the blind to about 15 yards in front of the blind for the decoys. Once this was finished it was time for the hunt.

The Successful Turkey Hunt in the Blind

We came in the next morning without headlamps just as the sky was light enough to barely see your hand in front of your face. The trail kept us silent all the way into the blind, and as we set out the turkey decoys. We got into the blind and as the daylight broke we settled in for our first hunt out of that blind. It amazed me at how perfect the black interior of the blind, with our black shirts, hats, and black camo face paint from Carbomask worked. See for yourself how the rest of the hunt turned out!

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