Hunting Blind Chair

What makes a blind chair different from any other hunting chair

A blind chair lives in a small fabric room with holes in it. That's the whole difference. A stool or a turkey seat is built for the woods, where you can set it anywhere. A blind chair has to fit the window heights, the floor and the space of the blind you already own.

The rest of the hunting chair family (stools, low turkey seats, heated models, plain folding chairs) is laid out on the hunting chair page. This page sticks to the seat you put inside a ground blind and leave there.

Most blind chairs share one shape: a seat on legs, a backrest, often a swivel. A typical camping chair is built for leaning back by the fire. In a blind you want upright. Upright is closer to how you'll shoot, so the move from waiting to drawing is small.

The table under this page lists blind chairs and folding hunting chairs as their makers describe them. It shows the type, seat height, whether the seat swivels or adjusts, whether there's a backrest, the frame, the weight and the weight capacity. The table marks values that come from the Amazon listing rather than the maker; when neither states a value, it gets a dash.

Why the chair matters more in a blind than anywhere else

Bowhunter's ground blind tips put it plainly: the more comfortable you are, the more likely you are to hold still. In a blind, holding still is the job. The fabric hides you, but only if you aren't fidgeting behind it.

And a blind is quiet inside. Every creak echoes. Grand View Outdoors tells about a turkey hunter whose chair squeaked; the hens heard it and left, and they took the tom with them. A deer at 15 yards hears the same squeak.

So the chair has three jobs. Keep you still, keep you quiet, and put your bow in the right spot when it's time. Everything below is one of those three.

What to look at in a hunting blind chair

Seat height has to fit your window, not your living room

Grand View Outdoors states the problem in one line: if your chair is too low, or the window is too high, your arrow could hit the bottom of the window. Bowhunter says the same thing from the other side: make sure the bottom of the window is well below your arrow when you get ready for the shot.

Here's what that means in practice. The number on the box (seat height) matters less than where your arrow ends up when you sit and draw. Two people on the same chair have different torso lengths. Two blinds have different window heights. Measure twice, cut once applies here, except you're cutting a deal, not a board.

The table shows seat height as the maker or the listing states it. When a seat adjusts, it's often listed as a range. If you hunt more than one blind, an adjustable seat is the easier answer.

Skip the arms, or make sure they get out of the way

Mossy Oak's ground blind advice: a seat with a back and without arms, because arms can get in the way when you aim or shoot. Bowhunter's version is that armrests must not interfere with your bowstring at full draw.

I'll grant the other side. Padded arms are nice for the long wait, and some chairs let you fold or pull them off. Fine. Just know which arm your string passes over, and make sure that one comes off or folds down.

My one opinion on this page: for a bowhunting blind, a chair with fixed arms is the wrong chair. The reason is in both sources above. The arm sits where the string goes, and you find that out at full draw with a deer in the window. That's a bad time to discover furniture.

A backrest earns its weight on a long sit

The backrest isn't luxury. It's what lets you stay put for the last hour of light instead of shifting every few minutes. Most blind chairs in the table have one; the table marks the ones that don't.

Check the backrest angle. A chair that tips you back is a chair you have to sit up out of before you can draw. That's the camping-chair problem again.

Legs that adjust one at a time level the seat on a blind floor

A ground blind floor is whatever was there before you set the blind: roots, a slope, a soft spot. Petersen's Hunting makes the case for legs that adjust one at a time: you can level the seat on uneven ground, and a level seat keeps you from sliding sideways and makes it easier to shoot.

Feet matter too. Petersen's describes wide feet that keep a chair from sinking into soft ground. On a wet field edge, a narrow leg tip works its way down all morning, and you tilt with it.

A tripod base is the other design. Three feet always find the ground, which is why stools use it. The catch is that you can't fine-tune a tripod leg by leg the way you level a four-legged chair.

A frame you can leave in the blind

Mossy Oak suggests a metal chair that is sturdy, quiet and can be left in the blind. The table lists the frame material as the maker or the listing states it.

Steel is heavier to carry in. If the chair stays in the blind all season, that weight only matters twice: setup and takedown. If you walk it in every hunt, look at the weight column before the frame column.

Seat fabric and the wet morning

Check what the seat is made of. A blind keeps the rain off, mostly. It doesn't keep out the morning you leave a window open and it rains sideways. (A soaked foam seat at first light in December teaches its lesson once. Once is plenty.)

If the maker calls a seat water-resistant, that's what it is: resistant. Take the maker's word for what it claims, and nothing more. And bring the seat in when you close up the blind for the week.

Weight capacity, with the coat on

The table shows weight capacity as the maker or the listing states it. You don't sit in a blind in a T-shirt. Count the heavy coat, the boots and whatever's in your pockets, then leave room on top of that.

Quiet claims are claims

Many makers call their chairs silent or quiet. The table marks a chair as quiet only when the maker or the listing says so. That's a promise from the maker, not a measurement. Your blind and your floor will make their own case.

How to set the chair inside the blind

Placement does as much as the chair does. Bowhunter's tips are specific, and I'd follow all of them:

• Back corner, not the middle. You're harder to see the farther you sit from the window.
• Not too far back. Your elbow shouldn't hit the back wall at full draw.
• Room in front. The arrow tip has to stay inside the blind when you draw.
• Clean floor. Sticks and leaves under your boots and chair legs make noise every time you shift.
• Gear to the edges. Keep your feet clear and the front window empty.

Bowhunter also says the blind has to be tall enough that your bow limbs never hit the ceiling while you draw or shoot. Sitting lowers you, but check it with the chair, not standing up.

Light matters too. Bowhunter warns against being backlit by light coming in behind you. If the chair puts a window at your back, close that window or cover it. More on blind setup is on the ground blind page and the general hunting blind page.

Practice from the chair before the season

Grand View Outdoors makes a point most of us skip: bowhunters sit in ground blinds but rarely, if ever, practice shooting from a chair. Its list of things to check is the best I've seen:

1. Does the jacket fabric over your chest bunch up when you sit and draw?
2. Do you tire sooner holding at full draw sitting than standing?
3. Is it harder to draw while seated?
4. How far from the window do you need to sit for the arrow tip to clear before you draw?
5. Does your stabilizer hit the front of the blind as you aim?

With fixed-blade broadheads, the same article says to take great care that the blades don't strike the window edges. Practice with field points from the same blind, at targets, until the chair and the window stop surprising you.

Jess shot her first deer at 15 from my ground blind, at 14 yards, with a borrowed recurve. She still writes the yardage in every logbook entry. What she didn't write down was what she was sitting on, and neither did I. These days I'd write that down first. A recurve's long limbs and a low seat make the window question harder, not easier.

Blind chair, swivel chair or stool

The same blind can take three kinds of seat. Here's when each makes sense.

• Fixed blind chair. One window that matters, one direction deer come from. Simple, fewer moving parts.
• Swivel blind chair. Deer can show up at more than one window. Petersen's Hunting notes that a 360-degree swivel lets one seat cover every window. Details are on the swivel hunting chair page.
• Stool. Short sits and long walks. Light to carry, hard on the back after an hour. See the hunting stool page.

Cold blinds have one more option, a heated seat, on the heated hunting chair page. And for spring, low seats built for turkey setups have their own turkey hunting chair page.

Care between hunts

Blind chairs don't ask for much, but they ask for it every year.

• Check the legs and locks. An adjustable leg that slips is a tilt waiting for the worst moment.
• Dry the seat. Fold it up wet and you'll find out in March.
• Listen to it. Sit, shift and turn in the garage. A squeak at home is a squeak in the blind. That's a Saturday-afternoon fix, not a 5 a.m. one.
• Look at the feet. Worn or missing foot pads let the leg sink.

If the chair stays in the blind all season, check it when you take the blind down. Mice like a padded seat as much as you do.

Who should skip a blind chair

Not everyone needs one.

• You hunt from a tree stand. You need a stand with a seat, not a chair. Look at the tree stand page.
• You hunt from a box blind with built-in seating. Check what's inside before you haul a chair up the ladder.
• You move every hour. A stool or a turkey seat is lighter and simpler to carry.
• You hunt spring turkeys against a tree. A low seat suits that better than a tall blind chair.

If you do sit a ground blind for hours, the chair is worth more thought than most people give it. It's the one piece of gear you're touching the whole hunt. Sit in it, draw from it, and write down what worked. The logbook has room.