On my most recent trip to Maine to hunt whitetail deer, one of my methods I employed was the use of a camouflage ground blind. The first picture shows the blind perched on a slightly elevated site, perhaps 3 or 4 feet higher than the buck pawing areas I wanted to watch over.
Finding the right location is the most difficult. Erecting the blind takes a matter of seconds.
Photo by Tom Remington
Inside the blind, I eliminated anything on the floor that might make sound. For me, I brought along a portable camp chair as I spent up to 3 hours at a time hiding out in here.
The blind provides a combination of zippers so that anyone could conceivably have visible shooting lanes 360 degrees. The zippers can be configured to small slits to large openings as the picture below depicts. I want my focus to be in one specific area…..straight ahead, so I arranged everything accordingly.
Photo by Tom Remington
From my blind, it was approximately 25-30 yards out to an area that contained a few buck pawings, part of what some call indications of the “pre-rut”. I used scents and attractants both on the ground and hanging in trees nearby. Unfortunately for me, activity was non-existent. None of the scrapings I had selected were visited all week long.
From inside the blind, I could rattle or grunt and all I seemed to pique a curiosity in was a passing chickadee who perched on a limb just in front of me, giving me a look of stupidity. He flew off before I could get my camera ready.
On the first legal day of deer hunting, I sat in the blind until exactly one half-hour after sunset (legal shooting time). By the time I gathered up my belongings and made the walk out, I needed my headlamp to see. My ride out of the woods was waiting for me when I got out and we proceeded to the next pick up point to gather other hunters. At that stop, we all stood in silence as we listened to the baying of many, many coyotes, coming from high above us down to the lowlands and swamps. These incessant cries continued all week long, all during the night. We heard them most nights from inside the camp as we slept. Sometimes they were close enough and loud enough that the howling interrupted our activities inside the camp.
I have been hunting from this family-owned camp for 35 years and only on occasion have we witnessed a coyote howl at night. There is no doubt in my mind that our area is overrun with the wily predator and played a definite role in our hunting success – in actuality the lack of any success at all.
Tom Remington
