Portable blinds are a key part in any mobile duck hunter’s strategy. When ducks change locations, hunters have to move with them or be left behind. And when they move from one place to another, hunters must be able to conceal themselves quickly and effectively. This is where portable blinds come in.

Boat hunters should have a portable blind fixed onto their craft. A boat blind allows hunters to run, scout and set up wherever ducks are working. A boat blind should be camouflaged to blend into natural surroundings (reeds, cattails, brush, etc.) and should provide overhead cover to hide hunters from ducks working overhead.

A super-effective version of a portable boat blind is a layout boat. This low-profile boat allows a hunter to virtually disappear in wide-open, shallow areas where puddle ducks like to feed and loaf. Layout boats can be carried or dragged into remote sites and launched off a pond or slough bank. They are very stable and roomy, and they are deadly when thatched with natural cover and parked where ducks are working.

Another example of a portable blind is the layout blind. These individual coffin-like blinds can be transported easily and set up quickly in a dry field, on a sandbar, at the edge of a pond or pothole, and even in shallow water if the layout blind has a waterproof bottom and sides (like Cabela’s Northern Flight Ultimate Layout Blind).

One more option for a portable “blind” is a ghillie suit. A hunter can don this ready-to-wear blind and disappear in on-site vegetation. This suit completely conceals the hunter and erases any hint of human form. Ghillie suits are finally gaining the attention they deserve for blending hunters into natural cover along river banks, fencerows, gullies and other terrain features.

Portable blinds can take a broad range of other forms. Hunters can use wire panels and Fast Grass to erect a quick hiding spot. They can dig shallow pits into sand bars and lie in them and cover up with canvas or burlap. They might stretch a length of camouflage netting between two trees in a cypress brake.

Whichever, the important features in portable blinds are ease of transport/setup and full concealment. Find where ducks are working, then figure out how to hide on the X.