I sit in plenty of blinds. Some made of camo mesh, some made of natural things. My favorite places and natural thing to use is the bambo grass in southern illinois. Those bambo thickets can get REALLY THICK. I kind of cut a depression into one and sick the grass back into the ground making like a fence out front. They work quite well on field edges and such. Have taken plenty of deer from them.

Sometimes, you just don't want to be up in a stand if your feeling sleepy or something, or you don't want a kid up in a stand alone.

I have had great success from my "spider hole". It is a hole along a brushy, beat up fence row, about 150 yards east from where the fence row tees into a north-south tree line that has a small fence in it with a small creek crossing right where it all comes together (we call it the "corner". The hole side is crop field and hay field and the other side of treeline is CRP with many lanes running thru it. If I strain my neck up I can glass pretty far off into the CRP and usually see most of the deer I've taken far off. I put some small cinder blocks in the bottom of the hole so when water sits in there, I don't have to keep my boots submerged. I put the bambo grass around this hole too. I've had deer walk withing spitting distance of me in there. There is a bigger pond on the east side of the tree/fence line about 200-240 yards nw of the hole with a smaller pond directly on the other side of the tree/fence line with spme trees spread around in varying sizes and every time someone uses the hole, atleast one real nice buck crosses the tree/fence line at the south edge of the ponds. usually between say 3:30 and dark. After dark, the field fills with deer.

There is an isle of land between the two ponds, along the tree/fence line. I am going to put a real nice stand deep in there for this shotgun season and I think it will produce. I'm putting together a 25' stand from 2-inch schedule 40 pipe that will seat two. Wheels and a hitch to pull it out there from the barn with ATV. Should be able to glass the CRP from that height in there. The bucks racks stand out well in the CRP. Many of the deer in the CRP don't come my way, but I learn travel patterns.

Good luck on your use of ground blinds. Another good thing about them is I set up a video recorder on a tripod and push the lense out thru a hole in the blind.

hey uncle matt! how's it going? glad to hear from ya. i always like reading your posts. good hunt'n to ya[8D]

I hunt from a relatively large pop-up ground blind and have had no trouble spooking the deer. I just don't feel safe in a tree stand. It is on private land, so I set it up in the summer. I even use a coleman blackcat heater to take the chill off. So far, I have had no trouble with it scaring the deer. I even plan on using it this year for bow hunting.