Alright, I just wanted to give those of you a little bit of a heads up... in the event that you need to replace a few of the rods in your blind. I had a buddy that had his foot smashed last summer, so I let him borrow my Matrix this past fall. Long story short, he got in a hurry and broke 5 of the fiberglass poles in the blind. I contacted DB and went through the process to get all the replacement pieces.

So, a few weeks ago I spen an entire afternoon taking the old ones out, measuring, cutting and replacing. Well, the rods that I had been sent were actually shorter than the ones that I needed for the ceiling... Not good. So I did the best I could and my blind was shaped more like a diamond than a square, which, in turn meant that two of the walls were to short and wouldn't stay popped out.

This weekend, I decided to fix it after getting more parts from DB. This time I decided that I take out all the rods to make sure everything was the same length. That was a horrible idea. Three and a half hours, a can of copenhagen and several beers later, I got it put back together. The rods for the ceiling were again too short, so I improvised. I stuffed material into the pockets where rods fit into. It worked perfectly, and the blind is back the way it's "supposed" to be.

Anyway, my advice is this:

1. Do everything you can to not take out all the rods... it's a mess.
2. If the rods that are mailed to you are too short, stuff the pockets. It works.

I realize this may not draw much attention, but if it saves one person the pain and suffering that I endured this weekend... it's worth it. So, good luck!