Why Turkey Hunt from a Ground Blind?

The warmer temps, trees starting to bud……ahhhh, Spring Turkey how I love thee, let me count the days!

If you are chasin Toms, you are likely either “runnin & gunnin” them (as in locating & setting up on them) or blind hunting them with decoys. In this piece, we will talk about blind hunting turkeys, because blinds are a GREAT way to tag a turkey!

Why a Blind? Well, there’s LOTS of reasons!!

1. You can set a pop-up blind anytime & anywhere! Turkeys typically are not wary of recently set blinds. You don’t have to brush it in, you can literally just pop it up and hunt in the middle of a field and turkeys will be “A-OK” with it.
2. Blinds give you an advantage over Turkey’s greatest defenses—their vison and hearing. If you have chased turkeys before, you know they have incredible vision (they can see 3X better than a human and 8X farther!). I can tell you from experience, that moving a finger too quickly is easily enough to send a bird packing. Blinds cover movement, allowing you to stretch, position your crossbow or when it gets slow, read a book (ok we know you’ll be on your cell phone) Hey at least you know we are creating fresh content for ya every year! Additionally, turkeys have incredible, make that EXCEPTIONAL hearing. I am blown away every year at how effectively turkeys can triangulate my position to within a few yards. The greatest benefit of a blind is its ability to hide movement, but they can also give a hunter a bit of an advantage in noise reduction. Make sure you clear the ground and eliminate any ground debris that could make noise.
3. You can easily fit 2 people in a blind! Crossbows are a GREAT way to introduce a kid or anyone else to turkey hunting (No BANG and no recoil), and in a blind you can “show them the ropes” and provide direction without getting busted by a bird.

Some things to keep in mind when blind hunting:

• Wear black. The goal is to for you to be “hidden in the shadows of the blind”. Buy a black facemask, and wear a black top. (If you don’t own a black jacket, sometimes hunting jackets have camo outers and black inners, so you might be able to turn it inside out).
• Shadows and being “backlit”. Remember, turkeys have phenomenal vision, so, if the sun is shining in through your windows, it’s like a spotlight on you. Set your blind up so that the sun is behind you. Likewise, if you have additional windows open, they can “see through the blind” and will see your movement. While we all want to be able to see what is going on around us, you should only have windows open on one side of the blind.
• Broadheads & blind hunting—Large mechanical broadheads are the preferred choice for putting turkeys down quickly, however mechanical broadheads & shoot through mesh widows will cause the blade to open (meaning, you will likely miss your bird). You have a few options here:
  • Use the shooting windows, this way, your broadhead blades will not deploy prematurely.
  • Practice with & shoot a fixed blade broadhead. Note that I started this off by saying “Practice with”, and that’s because fixed blade broadheads OFTEN have a different point of impact when shot from higher speed crossbows.
• Rangefinders may not work when used with shoot through mesh windows, so you may need to pre range your shooting locations.
• Place the male decoy (jake or gobbler) facing the blind. This will force the gobbler to come in with his back to you (so he can keep eye contact with the decoy).