Editor’s Note: Matt Morrett of Pennsylvania has realized every young man’s dream. In 1987, when he was 16-years old, he won the World Turkey Calling Championship in the Friction Call Division, which included slate calls, glass calls, box calls and any type of turkey-calling device that wasn’t used in your mouth. In 1987, Morrett began to work with Hunter’s Specialties. He appeared in 30 to 40 of the company’s videos and many of their TV shows. He started on TV with Tom Miranda on ESPN and has appeared on television for 15-20 years. He recently joined the PSE and the Mossy Oak Pro Staffs.
I prefer to hunt from ground blinds at the end of the season. Today the temperature is 18 degrees in Pennsylvania, and when the weather is this cold, sitting really still is difficult. If you’re sitting in a tree stand, and the wind is blowing, even if you have-on warm clothing, you’ll fidget or shiver a little. But if you use a ground blind, the deer can’t see that movement. Too, a ground blind breaks the wind and keeps you out of the snow. A ground blind made with Mossy Oak Infinity will blend-in with almost-any terrain. Even so, I use the same philosophy that I do when I’m in a tree stand wearing Mossy Oak Infinity. I still want to have some limbs and branches in front and behind me to help break-up my silhouette. Once I set-up a ground blind, I usually try to brush it up like I’ll brush-up a duck blind when hunting in hardwoods. I put limbs and brushes around the blind to give the blind a 3D effect. If I’m hunting in a corn field, I use standing corn stalks around the blind to give it a realistic appearance. In a pine forest, I saw-off lower limbs on the pine trees and use those limbs.
One thing I have noticed is if I set-up a ground blind in a corn field, a bean field or a grass field during turkey season, the blind doesn’t seem to bother the turkeys, especially if you have decoys out in front of the blind. But deer are different. I’ve watched deer before on the first day I’ve sat in a ground blind. Many times they’ll come through, see the blind and either shy away from it or break and run. This reason is why I brush my blinds up. I want to make that blind look as natural as I possibly can make it look. That’s also why I like to set my blind up a week or two before I plan to hunt. If you come in from a day of work, and your wife has moved the furniture around in the living room, you’ll stop and notice what has happened, because the living room looks different in the afternoon than it has in the morning. However, after 2 or 3 days of seeing the living-room furniture set-up differently, you become accustomed to the furniture being moved and are no longer startled and surprised by that move. This way, the deer have an opportunity to get used to the blind, before I’m sitting in it.
Tomorrow: Matt Morrett Says He’s the Total Mossy Oak Package to Hunt Deer in the Late Season
