Hello, I'm Brian Posthumus with Colorado Parks and Wildlife. I'm the
Northeast Region Hunting and Angling Outreach Coordinator. We're here today to
talk about the basics of turkey hunting. Right now we're going to talk about
different ways to conceal yourself out in the woods. The easiest way to go out
there, the cheapest, most affordable way to get out hunting, is just put your back
up against a tree. You start out by getting some good camouflage; camouflage pants,
camouflage shirt, that's all you really need to get out there. Have a face mask.
Have a hat on as well. You want to camo up as much as you can. If you don't
want a face mask you can get some face paint, and paint the bright parts of your
face so you aren't visible to the turkeys as they come in. Remember you're
trying to avoid being seen by turkeys. They've got great eyesight. They've got great
hearing, so slow movements get camouflaged in there. If you want to
spend a little bit more money there's a leafy pattern. This just goes over
your camouflage. It's almost like a ghillie suit, not quite to that extent,
but it helps blend you in as well. You can buy some of these sets. They even
have a face mask that you can use. If you want to go a little bit further and
conceal yourself up, you can buy just a camo pattern and throw that over top of
your legs. Or, you could kind of drape it across some branches, some grass
that's out there to just to kind of conceal you in. Again, it's a way to break up your
pattern, just hide you in the woods, make you look a little more like you're
blending in. We've got other options out there as well. I really like this for a
single hunter going out. It's a little tripod set up, here. You open the legs up
in front. You got a tripod that goes in back, creates a place for you to set your
shotgun. You can move these out and it helps to conceal you. You set this out in
front of you and you can have your decoys out front and hunt right from
there. That's a great setup. You're going to be limited to just one hunter with that.
You can get another blind, I call this a panel blind, and this is a blind that
just rolls up. So, it's great, easy to take with you out in the field. You got a
couple of steaks you can set up out in front of you. You can conceal a couple of
people behind this. Set it up behind you like this. There's a
couple of guidelines that come out, and this will help conceal you out in the
woods as well, real easy. The thing I like about this is it's very
lightweight, it's portable, and all my movement when I'm calling, if I'm doing
anything, it's below the panel blind. So, it conceals a lot of my movement. The
turkey's not going to see me calling as they come in. This is great if you're
hunting with two people; one person can call, the other person can be the hunter
and getting ready to shoot. And, finally the biggest, heaviest one
of all, is going to be this panel ground blind, or a hub style ground blind. It's a
little bit heavier. You can take it out into the woods. This is a great blind if
you're willing to haul it out into the field. This is a great blind for youth,
and some beginner hunters, also for some bowhunters as well, conceals a lot of
movement. We're gonna open this up, and show you how to open it up and take it
down. What we have here is a Primos double bull, hub style, ground blind.
There's all sorts of ground blinds out there. We're just going to show you this
style, but there's all sorts of great options that are out there. When you're
shopping for ground blinds, if you're a bowhunter, what I want you to think
about is the size of the window openings, the size of the blind. Because, if you're
drawn back that bow, you have to have a little bit of room to draw back. And,
think about the size of the window openings that you have as well. If you
have a blind that has real tight holes, it's great for shotgun, but for archery
hunting, for bowhunting, you want to have a little bit bigger window because your
sight window is slightly above your arrow. So, you don't want that arrow to
hit the blind itself. Let's get started opening this up. It comes in a handy pack
here. When you open it up, what I like to do is get the bottom, the black side, on
the ground. When I do that, now I'm going to look for the top, and sometimes it
helps to just stand on one side of it. And, I'm going to look in the middle for
a pull tab on the very top hub. You just got to give it a little bit of a yank.
When I do that the top comes up. Each other side, the next four sides, same
thing. So, just stand on that, look for the pull tab,
give it a little bit of a tug, and just start working your way around.
The pole tabs also function for your steak guylines. I think it's really important
that you have at least eight steaks out there with you out in the field,
one for each guyline that comes out, another steak to go in the corners of
the blind. If the wind is blowing, this will just get picked up in the wind. It
could be a big camouflaged bowling ball rolling out of the county. When you set
these blinds up, think about a couple of things. Number one, figure out where your
decoys are, and have the opening, just the one window, open to your decoys.
Leave the backside closed. That way, the turkeys can't see your silhouette moving
in the blind. I also recommend wearing a black
sweatshirt, and black face paint or black mask. You'll notice the inside of this blind
is black. It'll help conceal you if you're black as well. When you're in here,
you can either have a shooting stick setting up here for your shotgun, or you
can have your bow in there as well. I recommend sitting on a tripod chair,
just a quick little tripod chair. It's lightweight. It's small. If you have a
couple of people in the blind with you, you're kind of short on space, so a
little tripod chair. You still have a backrest to get comfortable, but you have
room for the rest of the people in there as well. As for tearing the blind down,
you're just gonna reverse the steps. Take all the stakes out first. Make sure you
put them on your bag, so you don't lose them out in the field. And then, just
start pushing at the hubs. Just push in. You can move your way around the blind.
I like to do the sides first.
I end with where I began. I just pushed down in the center. Now at this point you
wonder, what we do here? I like to push down just a little bit. It'll fold in, and
then the four corners come together.
There we are, and we can pack it away and leave.