Forum | Today

I looked like a monkey f*&%ing an elephant!  I plan on doing some spring turkey hunting near the house here in Tennessee and with the rain in the forecast, I wanted to be able to use my pop up blind.  The only thing is, my blind lost its "pop."

A couple of the ends of the support rods had broken, and the stitching came loose on several of the rod pockets.

It's an older, hub style blind, made by a company that was bought up by another company, and my particular model is no longer being made, so no parts are available. 

So with it being kinda cold and rainy today, I couldn't really do anything outside and decided to see if I could fix the blind…

I pulled the two rods with broken ends and discovered that the nipples on the end of the rods were the same diameter as a 1/4×20 bolt.  I carefully drilled through the ends, tapped the holes, threaded a bolt through and locked them down with some super glue.  I then cut them to the right length and put them back in the hub.

Using some doubled up 10 lb. PowerPro fishing line, I sewed up the stake pockets that had torn loose.  It was evidently shortly after this process that things went to hell in a handbasket…

Now you have to remember that this is a LARGE blind.  When I got it, I planned it being able to comfortably seat me, possibly a hunting guide and a camera man.  So it's not easy for one person to set up by himself.  Then too, I apparently set a couple of the rods in the wrong pockets, AND managed to insert at least one of the rods through a window of the blind! 

So when I was wrestling with the blind, trying to set it up, I was inside, outside, on the side, cussing, swearing, sweating, only to find out that it couldn't possibly be set up.  I tried wrestling with it, attempting to move the rods into different pockets only to find that was impossible.  So then I took it down, moved a couple of the rods, and tried to set it up again, only to find that the rods were still wrong. 

So with about an hour's worth of work, I was able to finally discover that my pop up blind now has is old POP, and I'll be able to hunt turkeys even if it's raining!!!