A Guide to Building Your Own Hunting Blind

Patience is a virtue and it is also essential to your success as a hunter. In many ways, hunting is about making the most of the few opportunities that present themselves to you. Over the course of a day spent hunting, you may only get a handful of chances to land a clean shot on your target and it is imperative that you capitalize on them.

Of course, careless hunters may not even receive those opportunities because they are constantly tipping off their presence to their prey. Given that your success hinges on you being able to land a clean shot before a target even realizes you’re there, you need to conceal your location somehow until the time is right.

That’s where the hunting blind comes in.

Hunting blinds are designed to keep you hidden from your targets. By staying in a hunting blind, you can wait more comfortably for your opportunity to strike. That should increase the odds of your hunting expedition turning out successfully.

You can find ready-made hunting blinds by heading to a sporting goods store or shopping online. However, if you want to save some money and acquire some valuable experience, you can try building a hunting blind yourself.

Listed below are the tips and steps you need to know to create your very own functional hunting blind.

General Tips for Building a Hunting Blind

Choose the Ideal Spot for Your Hunting Blind

Moving your hunting blind around can be a frustrating and tiresome ordeal. There are quite a few moving parts involved and having to tear them down and set them up repeatedly can get old really fast.

For all those reasons, you should already find a good spot for your hunting blind before you even start building it.

So, what are the qualities of the ideal spot for a hunting blind?

hunting inside blind

First off, it has to be near a place that your targets frequent. Animals will often head to streams to quench their thirst so finding a spot near one of them would be a good move.

Next, try to secure an elevated spot for the blind. Being elevated will make it easier for you to establish a clear sightline from the opening of your blind all the way to your target. Ridges can serve as great locations for hunting blinds.

While not essential, it would also be ideal if there are objects such as hay bales or trees that can obscure your hunting blind’s location. Make it as difficult as possible for your targets to spot you by locating the blind properly.

Bring Only the Essential Tools

There’s no need to fill a hunting backpack with all kinds of tools if your goal is to build a hunting blind. If anything, you should aim to travel lighter since working in the wilderness can be unpredictable. The good news is that many of the materials you will need to construct a functional hunting blind are already available in the place where you will want to set one up.

Just focus on bringing the essential tools with you such as an axe, a machete, and some rope. You can try only taking a machete with you, but that will prevent you from using larger pieces of wood. By bringing the axe along, you give yourself the opportunity to add larger chunks of wood to your hunting blind, thus solidifying it.

women hunter with rifle

The Process of Building a Hunting Blind

The steps included in this article are useful for building a ground hunting blind. An elevated hunting blind is good if you’re traveling with a lot of people and you’re going to spend time in a dense forest, but a ground hunting blind is more versatile.

1. Find a Big Log and Use It as Your Starting Point

To make the construction process easier and faster, you can start by finding a big fallen tree to work with. If the fallen tree is big enough, it can already serve as a pretty good makeshift blind. You just have to add to it.

Settle on one side of the log and clear out any branches that may be poking you by using either your axe or your machete.

2. Add More Wood to the Hunting Blind

Now that you have a base, you should improve it by introducing more elements. Gather some sticks and line them along the top of the fallen tree to further obscure yourself from your view.

If the log you found is not big enough, you can chop other fallen trees into smaller pieces of wood and pile those on top of your base log. Pile them up high enough to cover you, but make the whole thing look natural.

Pull out the rope and then tie the pieces of wood together. You now have something that can qualify as a hunting blind, but you can still improve upon it.

3. Cover Up Your Hunting Blind and Make It More Comfortable

Finish off your hunting blind by finding some longer sticks or cut off some branches from the trees. Place a hunting chair behind the base of your hunting blind and use that as a reference point.

Arrange the branches and sticks over your chair so that it is covered, but don’t make the covering too low to prevent it from scraping the top of your head. Try to position the sticks and branches in such a way that they will resemble a kind of wooden frame of a tent.

Secure the sticks and branches into place using more rope.

Finally, try to cover your newly built hunting blind with a bunch of leaves. Doing so will keep it from sticking out.

Successful hunters know that you need a good hunting blind if you want a real chance at taking out your targets. Hunting blinds offer comfort and more importantly, they also provide you with all the camouflage you require to catch your target off guard.

Hopefully, the tips included in this article will make it easier for you to have a good hunting experience the next time you’re out in the wilderness.