How should a guy build a blind?

[Quack]

Over the years I've become enlightened to the fact that I was born into the stereotypical MN duck hunting failure. It was great for a while but success at the old stomping grounds just ain't what it was. I've moved on for the most part but my family still hunts there and I join them occasionally.

Typical MN setup... 4x8 box blinds on a point. We pretty much need to be able to look & shoot in all directions so putting a roof on isn't feasible.

Any advice, or better yet pics, of how to build a permanent blind out in the open without too much overhead exposure?

I've considered leaning the front & back walls in at an angle. Maybe some partitions to make shooting holes.

Recently thought about building a Bimini style boat blind topper.

[Harold Houck]

Dig... and have overhead cover

[Hansen]

I purchased an avian X A-Frame blind in August. It's great! Easy to set-up, move, take down. It sets up in minutes. Brush it in once and add more as needed. The only draw back is you can only fit 3 guys in it.

[Fish Felon]

Hard to say without seeing the spot. If you can match the surrounding cover and not be elevated above it you should be OK. Most box blinds I've seen accomplish neither.

Angle the sides and instead of standing to shoot maybe try setting it up for sitting and shooting so the outline is closer to the ground. Get some burlap and a staple gun and try to gilly-suit it up some and then have chicken wire or straps of some kind to brush it.

If you can dig down some without having the bottom in water do it. It all depends on how much time and money on materials you want to spend.

[gimpfinger]

Partial roof. One where you can sit under and stand up and forward from where you sit to shoot.

Team Power Dump

[Quack]

Thanks for the ideas, gentlemen. Unfortunately digging isn't an option due to rapidly fluctuating water levels (one of the reasons for poor habitat) and its pure sand with heavy wave action.

Hansen- how wide is the shooting gap in the A-Frame? Might build a plywood version of that & plant some shrubs in the spring

[Hansen]

Quack - I'll have to measure it this weekend if we use it. It's wide enough to comfortably come up. My guess would 3 feet or so. What nice is you can add longer brush like that tall cane to the middle stubble straps and it covers the opening. During the earlier season we had geese fly right over the top, turn and dump into the spread. You could build something like it and use chicken wire and zip-tie in the cover.

[maplelakeduckslayer]

On my box blind, I built the blind then used that camo military surplus old style netting cabelas used to have...think it was like 20x40 or something like that. Peaked up above the blind then sloping in all directions to limit sharp weird looking lines. Filled the netting with vegetation. Worked pretty good. Some of the original vegetation is still in there after 15 years...just add some green stuff every year to make it blend in again

[lanyard]

MLDS is on to it.... the top cover does not need to be solid like a lid, but any sort of netting that you can see up and through that get some veg is fine. Best blind I ever did was a colossal pain the ass, but it was chicken wire with cattails weaved through. I got sick of the project when I would take a step back and could still into the boat after harvesting and weaving for a few hours, said screw it, and went hunting.....

The birds are looking from 40 or more yards away, not 10'. What happened was they could see daylight, etc. through it, but couldn't see me. And compared to the pop blinds, that blended better with the sparser vegetation than a tent on a boat.

I've been contemplating what a fiberglass pole "pop top" would look like. Some netting or wire, a bit of vegetation, and an elastic cord attached to two fiberglass poles attached at the back of the blind then bent over and held until release by the elastic cord......

[h2ofwlr]

Yes he is spot on about eliminating sharp lines. I bet you can still get the military camo on Ebay. Years ago I bought a desert camo netting that was used in the 1st Gulf war to cover Humvees. (hunt primarily hunt cattails, so the tan worked well mid to late season) And adding branches and brush helps a lot to break the outline. I am a fan of solid wood (plywood) for the basic blind for this 1 reason - it stops the wind. Having a wind break makes it much more enjoyable while hunting when it is cold and windy conditions. 1/2" green treated plywood and GT 2x4s works well and does not rot out. Use triple coat or SS screws VS nails, as it is much easier to modify or partially disassemble to move it to a new location in the future.