There are times when I think that for some strange reason, I am drawn to things that lead to frustration. Want proof? How about the fact that I farm — which can be rewarding in many ways, but can certainly be frustrating. Having equipment break down when it’s needed the most. Watching a line of rain miraculously break up when it gets within 2 miles of my draught-stricken fields. Or finding what was a perfectly healthy calf dead in the bottom of a ravine. Of course, there is also the fact that I’m a bowhunter, and for those fellow bowhunters out there I really don’t need to elaborate.

One particularly maddening experience worth mentioning is sitting in a stand, watching a big buck walk past another stand you decided to not to hunt from that evening.

Want an example? When I first started using hay bale blinds, I was told that they didn’t take a “getting used to” period for deer. I was told deer would walk right past it the first day I set it up. I didn’t believe it so I set up the blind and then moved 500 yards to the opposite side of the 18-acre field. That evening I watched 20 deer walk right past the hay bale blind, including one stud of a 10-pointer. Meanwhile, the only living critters on my end of the field were me and three portly raccoons.

The Concept of Hay Bale Blinds

Blinds made to look like hay bales have become somewhat in vogue over the past few years. However, the idea of using hay bales as a blind is not a new concept. For years, hunters have used bales of hay to construct hunting blinds — everything from the simple four round bales with a hole in the middle configuration to more elaborate structures built out of both small or large square bales. The thinking is that deer are used to seeing hay bales in areas where hay is commonly grown so these blinds do not look out of place.

I have not been able to figure out how to ask a deer to get a definitive answer, but the theory makes sense for the most part, and bale blinds do seem to work pretty well. The problem with using actual bales of hay is that first, you must have access to them, and second, you need the equipment to move and situate them. If you don’t own the hay or the tractor to move it, then you must rely on the generosity of a local farmer and on his/her schedule, which might not necessarily match yours. Sure, you can always transport small, square bales in your truck and build one, but it takes a bunch to construct a decent-sized blind and you will probably have to buy them, because the farmer might not want them back after they have been rained on, snowed on and likely chewed on.

Also, blinds built out of actual bales are not always the easiest to hunt out of. I have built several of the four-round bale blinds and usually have to stand most of the time to see, plus there are limited shooting openings if you’re bowhunting. So the alternative is to use a manufactured blind designed to look like a hay bale.

Faux Blinds: Built Rugged to Last

There are several companies that manufacture hay bale blinds. There are also many individual entrepreneurs who make and sell “home-made” versions. I use Redneck’s hay bale blind, but there are many other good options to choose from. The basic structure is similar across brands, consisting of an internal frame and a covering made from a material that resembles hay with shooting windows and a door.

Frames vary from metal tubes and bars that bolt together to welded wire cattle panels bent in shape to simulate a bale of hay. I have also seen them made out of PVC and other materials. Regardless of the materials used for the frame, it must be sturdy enough to support the covering and be able to withstand wind, rain, cold and heat, but preferably also light enough to make the blind manageable to move.

The covering I have seen most often is made of straw or straw-like material that is woven into or connected to a fabric that holds it all together. It is similar if not the same as those used in landscaping as straw matting. Many also have an internal layer that is black or dark colored and water proof or water resistant. The dark material helps “black-out” the interior to keep the hunter better hidden, a similar method used in many pop-up blinds. Adding the waterproof or water resistance layer helps to not only protect the framework, but also makes for a much more comfortable sit during a drizzling fall afternoon.

Some coverings are not actually straw/hay, but are materials that look like hay or, at minimum, are the same color as hay. There might be some advantages to not using actual straw/hay matting, namely the fact that the material can be hard to work with and can be subject to getting torn up when frequently moved. Do these coverings work as effectively as the actual matting material? I have only used blinds with the actual matting material so I cannot say with authority, but personally I like a blind that resembles a hay bale as much as possible and the matting helps accomplish that.

Mobility is Key

From the time I first used a manufactured hay bale blind, I realized the value that it brought to my hunting efforts. However, I also quickly figured out its weakness was mobility. Compared to a standard pop-up blind, it was no easy task to move one. In most cases, it required deconstruction, or at least the removal of the outside covering, to transport it to a new location. In some cases it meant the complete breakdown of the covering and frame.

Then one summer afternoon I was loading some big round bales on my hay trailer and happened to notice a lone bale sitting on the trailer awaiting more bales to complete the full load for transport. As is often the case, I was thinking about hunting, and it dawned on me that if my hay bale blind was on a trailer, it would solve the issue of immobility. I understand that this probably doesn’t sound like a revolutionary thought, and that the same idea has probably been considered by others, but for me it was an aha moment.

So I purchased a couple of small, inexpensive trailer kits and after some unanticipated minor alterations (I learned the trailer floor must be bigger than the blind floor, for example) built the devices that would make my hay bale blinds mobile. The trailers are small 8-foot-long, two-wheeled trailers with the frame for the hay bale blind bolted to the floor.

I was pretty proud of the completed product and started to conjure up ways my new mobile hay bale blinds could be put to task.  But then a buddy came over and looked at my creation and said, “That’s a weird looking trailer for a big round bale to be on. Shouldn’t it be on a regular hay trailer?” My response was this, “If deer are intelligent enough to know the appropriate type of trailer required to haul an actual big round bale, we have no chance of ever killing them.”

I really don’t think a deer looks at a trailer and thinks, That’s not a regular hay trailer, something is amiss here. It brings to mind the famous Jeremiah Johnson quote, “Elk don’t know how many legs a horse has, pilgrim.” And sure enough, the deer treated the bale and trailer like any other similar rig they had seen.

Hay Bale Blind Strategies

Utilizing a hay bale blind provides a couple of key advantages over regular pop-up blinds. First, there is no need to brush in or camouflage it, because hay bales are normally out in the open anyway. The trick of blending in is accomplished by the fact that you are in a structure that looks like it should be there. This allows you to chose the best location based on deer movement as opposed to where you can best blend into the terrain. Second, as I mentioned earlier, there is less time if not zero time required for deer to acclimate to the blind.

Like anything else, there are some cons to hay bale blinds. They cost more than pop-up blinds and take longer to assemble and disassemble. If you are storing them, they take up quite a bit more room. Probably the biggest negative is mobility, but mounting them on a trailer takes care of that problem.

Let’s say you’re hunting a large field that has several trails leading out onto it. If most of the deer are coming onto the field using a trail you are not set up on, simply hook up the trailer and move the blind to the hot trail. I have actually done that and hunted in the blind the same afternoon, moving it from an area with little deer movement to a more active part of the field. I scared some deer in the process, but it was early, and by sunset I had deer all around me.

What if you’re hunting a food source and realize the wind is blowing your scent across the plot? Just hook up to the trailer and move it to the other side. I use a small trailer and most of the blinds are fairly light so moving it can be done by truck, side-by-side or quad, or if you’re desperate and strong enough, even by hand.

I realize it sounds simple and it pretty much is. The combined attributes of being in a structure that deer are not extremely wary of and therefore requires little to no acceptance time combined with the ability to move that structure easily results in a highly effective hunting tool.

Bales Where There Are No Bales

One question that always arises with bale blinds is whether they will work on a farm or in a field that doesn’t have hay bales — the thinking being that if a deer is not used to seeing hay bales in a particular field, it will become suspicious. What I have concluded is that how deer react to hay bale blinds varies depending on location, but not as much as you might think.

If you use a hay bale blind on a field or near a field that commonly or even occasionally has actual bales of hay on it, deer don’t seem to show much fear or nervousness around the blind from day one of the setup. They might be curious because anything new in their world will get their attention, but in my experience it did not cause avoidance. Hay bale blinds that are used in fields or farms that normally don’t contain hay bales can still be effective if the neighbor has hay bales or at least their home area has hay bales in it from time to time.

There are few places in much of the whitetail’s world where hay bales are completely absent and the resident deer have never seen one. If a particular field has never had a hay bale in it, but there is a hay field a mile away, deer will not be bothered by a hay bale blind. Hay gets moved around all of the time from hay fields to hay lots to pastures, even rolled down into wooded areas. So a hay bale popping up somewhere in a new location is not necessarily abnormal. Again, deer can’t deduce a threat based on a hay bale blind being in a field that is not a hay field or pasture. If they could, we would all have empty freezers. 

Conclusion

Hunting with hay bale blinds, and especially mobile bale blinds, can be highly effective and result in great hunting experiences. If you want deer close — so close they are nibbling on the blind you are sitting in — bale blinds are a great tool. But as it is with most things in life, there is no silver bullet for hunting deer, and for that I am thankful, because it is the frustrating times that make the successes that much sweeter.

— Matt Harper is an avid whitetail hunter and food plot expert from Iowa.

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