Frustrating, but it beats work

[CP]

Friday I sat for 3 hours in the ice cold pouring rain and bone chilling wind watching ducks continually approach my spread only to slide around or flare away out of range.  I pulled the wind duck, no change; I rearranged the dekes several times, no change.  I called, I didn’t call – no difference.  Finally I pulled all the decoys; still it was as if I was wearing an orange jump suit.  They knew where the blind was and they seemed to know I was in it.   

There were a couple thousand widgeon and a few hundred mallards in the plowed potato field next to the flooded barley field that I was hunting.   No shortage of birds and they were flying back and forth, skirting my blind, landing out of range.  I was well hidden, using the same decoys that have worked many times before.

I finally succumbed to the cold and wet and waded out of there, back to the warm dry truck.  I sat there and drank coffee and watched the birds fly in from the bay and land in the potato field; they were still skirting around the blind.

I need to figure this out before my next hunt there. 

[JBG]

What kind of blind is it?  That is obviously your problem. You probably need to hunt a different part of the field out of a layout blind or rest the area for a while until they trust it again.

[CP]

Yep.  But it's a standard WDFW provided metal pole, wire and fake grass blind. 

“Hunting is restricted to the blind.”

[eastsidemallard74]

Where were you set up? And what in?How dressed up was it?Me personally, never had any luck hunting middle of any field, you have become a large hump of something the birds see, not normal. my biggest part in setting up is dressing up the blind with like vegetation in or near what I'm hunting, and I am a big believer in you can never do too much.

[CP]

Yep, the blind is in the middle of the field, sticks out like a sore thumb.  I probably should just find another place to hunt.

[h2ofowlr]

Yep, the blind is in the middle of the field, sticks out like a sore thumb.  I probably should just find another place to hunt.

They get blasted hard in some of the QH fields.  We tried this last year when it snowed.  They would circle and land way outside, but would never come close to the blind.  If we could have sat 50 yards outside the blind we would have hammered them.  Some of the blinds are like a red flag.

[BOWHUNTER45]

Sounds like one of those public areas ..they put these blinds up and think the birds will continue to fly right on in and get there tail feathers blown off    You would think they could rotate the blinds every other week or something ...

[lokidog]

Sounds like one of those public areas ..they put these blinds up and think the birds will continue to fly right on in and get there tail feathers blown off    You would think they could rotate the blinds every other week or something ...

 

I had a 50 yard bubble around me yesterday, it was the craziest thing.  I had a good driftwood blind setup but even the buffleheads would only swim to 49 yards of me, it was crazy. 

[WSU]

No chance you can brush the blind up a bit?  Sounds like an otherwise killer setup.

[Fishnclifff]

Any cattails around or heavy type brush you can " transplant" around the blind?

We had the same thing at Ridgefield.
Made all the same changes, ended up with 5 birds.

[CP]

Looks like this:

[Fishnclifff]

Got a pic of the blind

[Curly]

Looks like you need some battery operated decoys to add some movement to the spread. 

[CP]

Got a pic of the blind

Nope.

[WSU]

I've killed birds out of a blind in the middle of a field on a public hunting area.  It may be that just adding brush to the blind will get it done.

[Mfowl]

Have you considered adding a roof of some sort to the blind. It may look good at ground level but from the air it may look like a box with a hunter in it. Consider using some camo netting or wire mesh that you can bring out and use the available vegetation to cover you from above. Also try putting your dekes out away from the blind to keep the birds attention there and not on you. It sounds like the birds are in a pattern and wise to the blind. A weather pattern that disrupts them could be good too. Its always frustrating setting up next to a "black hole" of real birds. Good luck!

[Tealer]

Grass the piss out of the blind so you can barely see out. I would also use a pull string and toss the wind power. We hunt a club that the blinds never move, it gets hunted literally everyday. Still shoots great.


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[sakoshooter]

Yep.  But it's a standard WDFW provided metal pole, wire and fake grass blind. 

“Hunting is restricted to the blind.”

Pretty obvious they've been burnt off that blind by previous hunters, no doubt sky busters or very poor shots since dead ducks have a hard time remembering .
Also, just because the WDFW put a blind there doesn't mean it's a favorite spot of the ducks. Just maybe the birds don't like the area the blind is in that much. Time of year, feed available, water levels etc can effect where birds go and what they do.

[Fishnclifff]

 

[Special T]

I have to second a jerk string. That is the only thing that MAY help. The blind could just be burnt and there isnt much you can do about that. A bunch of decoys in the water and no ripples is a bad thing for sure.

[Kola16]