Deer Hunting Out of a Box Blind

In Oklahoma, the deer gun season opens on the weekend before Thanksgiving and I've been deer hunting off and on since then.  Last year, it turned brutally cold early in the gun season with sleet and snow, which both made it hard to hunt and started me thinking about building some sort of box blind so I could get out of the weather if I wanted to.  Then the antlerless deer season in late-December was even more miserable, which made me think even more seriously about building a box blind so I could go deer hunting without getting frostbite or hypothermia.

You would think that building a box blind and then hunting out of it would be a simple matter, but I've always had a mindset about hunting that didn't include things like box blinds, hunting guides, ATVs, etc.  I've never really liked gadgets or shortcuts in hunting, and a box blind always seemed like a really big gadget and shortcut. 

With all those thoughts in mind, I finally broke down and built a simple box blind last summer (with help from my nephew) using salvaged material from a shed that was being dismantled and since it didn't really cost me anything to build, I was able to halfway convince myself that this wasn't really a gadget or shortcut because it was almost free (I think the final tally was about $10 for some hinges).  It's kind of funny how my mind works, ain't it? 

There's about a thousand different ways to build a box blind, so going into all the details isn't really that important (although if anyone asks, I'd share more of the details of how I built this box blind and what I'd do differently), but I basically built a simple 4x6 box on skids with shooting windows on three sides and a good watertight metal roof.  The roof is high enough inside so that I don't bash my head on the ceiling if I stand up too fast and the window openings are about 40 inches high.  If I ever build another one, I'd change a few things like making it 4x8 (so I'd have the crazy option of sleeping in it so I could then tell people that I had a "small hunting cabin in the woods"), I might make the windows openings a little shorter, and I'd try to make it a whole lot lighter so it'd be easier to move around.

Tiny hunting cabin

Windows opened up and ready for business

Looking South

Looking East-Northeast?

Looking North

After it was built, we loaded it up and put it in a part of the farm that used to be a small wheat field down along a creek.  This field is only about 8-9 acres, but it's about 450 yards long, so it's a long, skinny field.  It's been about forty years since it's been planted to wheat, but for years I've been thinking about trying to pasture crop some food plot mixtures of wheat, oats, ryegrass, clovers, turnips, etc. in this field (first, I need to get the bulldozer over there to fix the road to the field so I can get the tractor to it).    If I can eventually get something green growing in this field during deer season, a box blind might be even more useful and I might even go completely over to the dark-side and build an elevated box blind.

After sitting in the box blind a few times over the last week, it appears that I'm getting closer to official old-man status because I was able to sit a whole lot longer than normal without getting as cold or sore.  It's amazing how much easier it is to stay warm when you are sitting in a chair instead of on the ground or up in a treestand.  

Now I'm starting to see why box blinds are popular with old men, little kids, and people that are fond of comfortable chairs.  Shooting a deer out of a box blind with a rifle isn't the same as shooting a deer on the ground with a bow (which is my favorite way to hunt), but hunting out of a box blind is better than not hunting at all because it's too cold and miserable.  

As a bonus, I can always turn this box blind into a chicken house, a pigeon loft, an ice fishing shack, a super-deluxe outhouse, a roadside vegetable stand, or a super tiny house.