Concealment is key to late-season success

Pop-up blinds are great choices, if you understand how to use them

One of the tallest hurdles about hunting late-season deer is that they are on the back end of a season during which they have just about seen, heard and smelled it all.

Deer are wary enough, but deer that have learned how to avoid being shot take the cake.

That’s why Russ McVey feels there is no more important time to work on concealment than during January. He mainly hunts out of box stands, where detection isn’t that much of an issue.

But he also hunts out of a pop-up blind when he gets back in the woods.

“You can’t just set those tent blinds up anywhere you want and think you’re going to kill deer out of them,” McVey said. “Those deer aren’t stupid, and they know when something doesn’t belong.”

One of the first things McVey does when setting up his pop-up blind is ensure he’s putting it in a place that provides a good backdrop behind him.

Then he tries to blend it into the backdrop by adding limbs, leaves, pine straw or anything else he thinks might make it less obvious to deer.

“And I also set it up in such a way that the sun will be at my back or at the very least to my side,” McVey said. “That means you may have to put it somewhere you might not want it, but you definitely don’t want the sun blaring into your face as you hunt.

“My blind has a black interior, and I wear black clothing, but any little bit of movement with the sun in my face, and they’ll bust me.”