Darren wrote:Having hunted with Erik Rue's crew a few times, I know well the practice of hiding so well you can't see out. Don't advise going with them if you're under 6 ft, shooting can be tough from their blinds. Rick's handy work with a speck hide I got to see one time was similar, and very effective.
Darren, in the interest of candor, I've not had an all-mine ag land speck or combo blind since 2005, and while the one we hunted was a favored afternoon spot of mine, it seldom stayed the way I set it up for any length of time unless Dusty was the hunting it in the mornings. Honestly don't recall how it was set up the afternoon we hunted it, just that we lucked into having birds in the right place to make it easy.
Though I've dug a bazillion and twelve vasey (often called "Johnson" here) and wire/salt grass clumps to help others conceal their blinds in what I gather Eric Rue style, my ag land set-ups were very easy to shoot from and as easy as I could make them to see from without getting caught. As I want my hunters to be underway and not have to search for game when they come up. Also want the area around the blind to be as open and appear as danger-free as possible - meaning low or no cover on the blind levee or those near it.
Here's a camp blind I redid by knocking down the tall grass on its levee (and the next nearest), pitching what was left of the vasey clumps and covering it and much of the nearby levee with bundles matching what was on the levee, in that case itch grass:
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(Naturally, though, our ace guide staff was soon brushing the blind with the bundles I'd scattered down the levee to make it match the blind and doing their best to make it an odd, blind-sized spot again.)
Other times I've used wax myrtle to match blackberry vines or cedar to match to match the grasses that come up on a plowed levee and dressing much of the levee with same when need be:
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Whether grass bundles or green boughs, the trick is to avoid the appearance of a pile but have enough that everyone can pull them overhead when game's in the offing and peer out through a crack between the bundles or the greenery that will roll out of the way when they come up to shoot.
Sometimes greenery needs mixed with dead stuff to match the levee. Often times much of the levee needs dressed to match the blind. That, and I went to a lot more trouble than most are willing to insure that my blinds never looked like the gun-sprouting traffic circles 99% of blinds do. To that end, I established staging areas well away from the blind where folks could mill around or lay their gear down while I opened the blind at the only point we got in or out. Everyone was told "grass is gold" and no one was allowed to lay anything on or around the blind's cover or walk anywhere but the approved route between the blind and the staging area. I did all of the shell policing myself when they started to show and as carefully as I could.
The object of all that exercise being to make the whole of it look as free of possible danger as can be. And it worked. Shot six collared specks from one such blind (and a seventh from elsewhere on that farm) one year. Had to kill a lot of specks to do that, even back when collared birds were more common.
Thinking on it has me wanting to give it another whirl - until waking up to the reality that any success we enjoyed would be used as a subletting selling point.
But in your situation, Darren, where you're working with a small group of friends, setting and maintaining the perfect ambush could be an attainable goal...