What is everyone's thought about permanent ground blinds/towers? Anyone have luck shooting mature bucks from them?
During the late season over food plots, tower stands work well in my experience. My pops killed 2 mature deer over late season food back to back years. Plus my pops is 65, so getting in and out of the tower stands with bulky clothing has prolonged his late season hunting.
According to my dad, a permanent stand is the key to big bucks. He has had the same stand, a 6'x8'x8' 10' off the ground, for well over 20 years. It is located in a funnel and he does not bait but does have a mix of timothy and clover food plot. He keeps a propane heater and a comfy chair in the blind and makes fun of me being 18' up a tree on a hang-on exposed to the elements. He knocks a big buck down every year
I was able to take this nice mature buck out of my tower blind. Shot him over a boss buck decoy at less than 20 yards.
I don't hunt that tower blind very often, because I typically prefer the vantage from a treestand. That evening, I rushed home from work(left a little early), ran over to the blind and hunted. I had company coming over that evening so I didn't want to be late getting back in if I didn't have any luck. Luck would have it he followed the script, checked the does in the field then saw my Boss Buck decoy, made a nice big arching circle to meet the decoy head on. Somewhere around 18 yards from my tower blind. He was the dominant mature buck on my property that year and would have scored a little over 150 had he not broken his G2 off at the base early in the season. I've had plenty of other opportunities out of the blind but, this has been the only deer I've taken. I could kill a doe out of it just about any night of the week during the late season(sits over a 3 acre standing soybean field). I've passed some solid bucks and my wife missed an opportunity at a great deer during the rut several years back. I think if you the right spot, they can be great. Bow hunting out of one is a little different than gun hunting one. Even though I can see a dozen deer in an evening, getting one to walk within range can be a bit more challenging. The good thing about them is you can hunt them pretty often without worrying about spooking deer.
I think it's a good idea to black out any windows that would be behind you. I have one on the back of my blind that I have blocked off.
Thanks. I work pretty hard to take as good of trophy pics as possible. I think I took over 800 pics of my last buck and came out with about a dozen or so that I was really happy with.
You have an eye for it. The angle of the camera and the position of the deer itself makes a world of difference.
