Seriously ..... Pop-Up/Store-Bought Blinds

OK so if you look at the pic of the ground blind my kids & I used for the Youth Hunt, you can see it is brushed in well, and I have since brushed it in even MORE. It was put out a long time ago giving the deer plenty of time to get "familiar" with it. It has been rained on and sun dried so scent is not an issue. It sits at the bottom of 4 huge oaks that are wider than the blind is. I only open the front window about halfway and the two side portholes about halfway also. And we wear dark or camo clothing inside and remain still especially when there are approaching deer.

Now, having said all of that, and please spare all the other crap they always write in magazines and everything, but deer are still afraid of the dumb thing. I think I'd be getting the same reaction from them if I had just put it up the day of the hunt. They are extremely nervous when they come in and are constantly gazed at the blind. Sometimes they even just spook and run off. Honestly does anyone think the deer would EVER get used to it? Because I'm beginning to wonder. Would like some feedback please, thank you ...

Going off the picture you posted it's not brushed in near good enough in my opinion, it also stands out quite a bit with that camo pattern.

Well as I said I brushed it in more after I took that pic. Almost to where the actual camo pattern wasn't even visible anymore. Had I taken another pic of it I'd have posted it but unfortunately I didn't. And this is something I have noticed whenever I've used a pop-up blind. It seems like at close range the deer always are skiddish around it. I will say that they seem to be a little less skiddish around the square hub style blinds than they are around the Doghouse round style like the one I used this weekend, but still definitely on alert.

Is someone else hunting out of it? Were you spotted in it? I know the deer that my wife takes from her ground blind do look at the blind, especially the older ones, to see if she is sitting there. but she still manages to sit still enough to take multiple deer from it every year, and when gun season rolls round, I have taken a pop up and set it behind her deadfall blind, no brush at all, and had deer come in to 20 and 25 yards the same day. It seems very odd that the deer would be alarmed about this blind of yours to this extent unless someone has been using a similar one nearby, or been hunting from yours.

I don't think anyone else has been hunting in it, I think in this particular instance it did "stick out" a bit, mostly due to the camo color. It looked fine until I got it into the woods. Then it almost had a purplish tone to it. And in general I have noticed that most of the time deer seem to be skiddish around the pop-up blinds. Maybe it's because here in Michigan we have the most hunters per square mile in the nation, especially in the public woods I hunt LOL! and perhaps the deer are just very conditioned to spotting things out of place like pop-up blinds and such.

I have two of the CareTaker blinds by Ameristep and I like those dudes a lot. I took one hog hunting to fit me and a buddy and we ended up having to decent bucks come in to about 20 yards and stay and eat the corn the hogs had been tearing up. Unfortunately that was about 3 weeks ago and season had not begun. The deer did look at the blind a couple times but nothing stood out enough to them enough for them to leave. I bet we got to watch them for 45 minutes before it got too dark. It is the square hub style blind tho.

I definitely prefer the square hub style blinds over the round spring steel ones. In fact I removed the one I had pictured and put up a square hub blind instead. I set it up about 100 yards away from the original spot, in a small stand of thick small pines and brushed it in. The shape and the camo pattern meshed in extremely well. That was over a week ago and I won't be back to it until possibly the evening of Oct 4th if the conditions are right. I think I'll have better luck at not being detected in this one.