Hunting blinds are easy to construct out of natural wood foliage. The aim is to make a simple shelter out of wood, sticks, and shrubs to look like natural surroundings.
A hunting blind, hide, or machan is a concealment shelter that will imitate the local surrounding to hide a hunter. They also provide cover from the elements.
Sure you can buy a camouflaged hunting blind but it’s more fun to make one. I get the kids to design and make their own out of old dead trees and some young saplings on our property.
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Building a ground blind
There are many designs to quickly build a natural ground blind. Some of the DIY hunting blinds I have come across are teepee, A-frame, wood pallets, and square wood huts. We will go over all of these designs and more further in this article.
For a free-standing blind use some tree limbs to make a teepee. For a higher teepee make sure your branches are around 3m long. Paracord or zip ties will make sure the teepee stands tall and can withstand strong winds.
Once the teepee frame is complete you can lay shrubs and branches with leaves across the frame. I find that teepees are rather small inside unless they are made with very long branches. The taller you make your teepee the larger it can become and the more room you will have.
I find teepees are not very good to shoot from unless you are lying down. Crossbows and my 3d printed slingshots are virtually impossible to shoot from inside a teepee.
How to build a natural ground blind ideas
The following natural ground blind ideas utilize the surrounding trees or rock walls. All you need are some long branches and a few cross beams to make a nice blind hut.
Cut some old tree limbs at the same length to lay out the wall and the roof of the hinting blind.
This is my deer hunting bling that is only camouflaged on one side. This is because the deer only come in from one angle. Having some sunlight exposed areas will let light into your blind so you can read a book or work on your equipment.
There is a lot more room in these A-frame hunting blinds. The advantage is you can poke a rifle out from any exposed hole in the branches.
For a more permanent hunting blind solution you can make a simple square hut. This one was made from 15 long branches made into a square. This wood frame was then tied together with some paracord. Shrubs were then laid over the roof and walls to provide some shelter from the elements.
Deer blind ideas
This DIY deer hunting blind took us around 4 hours to complete. Sure it looks ugly but it works well to keep out the wind, rain, and sun.
DIY hunting blinds
Bamboo and water reeds make excellent blind material. They are long, straight, and very strong.
In this example, I use a rock wall to support one end of the bamboo blind. The higher you can make the rock wall the higher your hunting blind can be. Just be sure to support the rock wall for safety. We use a small amount of cement powder mixed with the local sandy soil to make the concrete to fit between the stones.
If you only have a few long pieces of wood you can use some more rocks to support the shorter branches.
In the above image, you can see that I used some rocks to prop up the shorter lengths of bamboo. This way I can still have a large opening for the hunter.
Pallet deer blind
Wooden pallets are an easy way to make hunting blinds. You can often find broken ones thrown out in many large factory dump bins. It is still a good idea to ask if you can have some. Nobody has ever said no to me as it saves on dumping costs for them.
I often will have to pull apart some broken ones to make a few good ones. These can then be stood up on their side and tied together to make the walls of the pallet deer blind.
I like to nail extra pallet timber beams around the sides to make it more stable. Then you can go as high as you like as long as you trust your woodworking skills. Two pallets high is usually my limit to feel safe.
Then all you need to do is cut out your firing positions and layer them with hunting camo or local shrubs.
Conclusion
Making hunting blinds can be fun especially if you take your time and involve some friends and family members. When I was in scouts we used to make them all the time as an activity to fill in some time. Sure we brought our own tents will full rain covers but it was always a fun activity.
I try and stay away from anything square as this doesn’t look natural. Deer and other wildlife will prick up on anything that looks man-made. Plenty of camouflage made out of tee branches should hide your contraption. Remember if you shoot upwind to hide your scent as deer have excellent smell receptors, better than most dogs.
As an electrician and a survivalist prepper, I want to share some of my ideas, thoughts, hardware, and survival techniques I have learned over the past 20 years. The world is changing fast and we need to be repaired for what may come if society breaks down.
