Anyone use a fan in their blind?
Pronghorn
Contributors to this thread:
I'm thinking about buying a fan to run in my blind this August in WY. If you have done this before please let me know what you bought and how you rigged it up? Did you leave it running when antelope came to water?
Yup....Those lil Mister types, (stole it from my daughter) are priceless....
Me too. Mine is Ameristep. Amazon has them for $21. I haven't used it with antelope, but deer don't seem to notice. It doesn't make a lot of noise but keeps the air moving.
Ive used the mister type, and a dewalt cordless fan. Either work well, and I havent noticed any ill effects when antelope come to water. They are pretty quiet, as long as you dont set them on high.
Sounds like a damn good idea in a 110* blind for antelope
Yep! Little spray bottle with a fan attached is a life saver in Nevada when the outside temperature exceeds 90 and even 100 on some days.
Besides a fan. Use a lite color blind like asat are waterfowl colors. Dark camo sucks up the heat. like sitting in a oven. At min use burlap on the roof to keep it cooler.
Another thing I used for work but would also work in blind I got a small USB port fan for keyboard cooling glued it inside top of hardhat. Used a long USB cord and a power supply boaster that clipped on belt ran easy for 10 hrs
I like one of those pressure mist bottles. A fine mist of water on your face and clothes can really cool you off. Never used a fan. Most of the time on plains there is always some wind. I usually leave back of blind cracked opened to let a draft through unless antelope semi close. Don't do that though if goats around they will pick you off silhouette it in blind
I run this one has a rechargeable battery, water reservoir for mist setting, and if it dies can run it off a battery pack. It's very quiet only complaint is the water reservoir is tiny and has to be filled like 17 time a sit.
Thanks for the great ideas guys. This could be a lifesaver.
Don't forget good old cooling rags around neck
I used them in a box stand hog hunting at night. Better than drowning in a pool of your own sweat ! My theory is, since they are not loud, the deer/hog hears them (maybe) but since it’s a continuous noise it doesn’t bother them much.
I did. Clamp on type with a rechargeable battery. Also brought a spray bottle with ice water. It works.
I'm the type of person who would rather it be -20 outside than 80. If I never felt air above 60 degrees again, I'd be fine with that.
Yesterday was the coldest 4 th of July on record. Hope we get some heat. Sounds like some good ideas.
I would bring a cooler packed with ice and keep a couple washcloths it it. I keep one rolled up around my neck and change them as needed. It makes a big difference…
On a few blinds I cut a window flap in the ceiling for venting accumulating hot air. And Place something to raise the middle of the bottom of the blind up a bit to create an airflow. Cow chips , rocks, old sage brush branch. Made a big difference. Like was said wind is almost always blowing, nice feeling the air flow coming up from the bottom and pushing hot ceiling air out.
I duct taped the edges ‘[‘ of the cut out on 3 sides of the roof window and the resulting replaceable flap. ‘ ] ‘. Made window big enough to fit the head thru to get a 360 periscope view now and then.
Rut Nut's Link
I would take Shug’s advice..................... but take it a step further and build a “hillbilly a/c” unit. With the rechargable/cordless fans you can get now, you can use it anywhere...................
Rut nut that's interesting. I've clipped my fan to the cooler where the clip holds the lid open slightly. The fan pushes the cold air around for a type of hillbilly A/C of course the ice melts faster with the lid open.
I’ve wanted to try this for hot weather camping for a couple years now. Gonna try to get all the stuff to build it this weekend. Supposed to be very efficient and works for hours since the lid is shut. Probably will depend on the battery life of the rechargable fan I get. But I’m thinking it will last at least 4-5 hours....................
I would not consider the lid closed on that. You are using a fan to blow the warm outside air on to the ice in cooler from a big hole on top. Probably melts faster than if you just left lid open. With that said I am sure would work well until ice melts. I'd guess it would last longer if you put frozen gallon jugs in cooler then some smaller frozen jugs. Also keep the hole with fan and pipes covered/insulted until you needed to use it later in day when it warms up.
I will assume you will have a cooler in the blind with you. Look into the cool towels too. You get them wet, snap them then wrap them around your neck.
I have used them in Fl and they work good. With the cooler you can keep them wet until you need them. Then you can put them back in the cooler.
https://www.amazon.com/cool-towels/s?k=cool+towels.
You can find them in darker colors too such as gray if you look around and not the neon colors.
I have also placed frozen water bottles to keep in my camelback to keep my water cold. Then you can drink the bottled water when camelback runs out.
smarba's Link
Ryobi 5gal bucket fan works quite well.
Tilzbow's Link
Based off the ideas in this thread, I bought this on Amazon. It’s got a low, medium and high fan setting along with a continuous and intermittent mist setting. I’m testing it right now to determine run time and so far it’s been running over 10 hours on the low fan setting and the mister has been going for 2 hours on one tank fill with the mister on the intermittent setting. Since I’m camping without power or a generator I plan to bring a couple of battery packs used for cell phones and tablets and recharge nightly with those. I’m going to test that next to see how many charges I can get from one battery pack and will update when that’s complete.
Good idea. Please let us know how it works out.
Battery packs I have are 26,800 mAh capacity, fan battery is 10,000 mAh capacity. When I recharged the fan after 10 hours of running it only took about an hour and consumed about 1/3 of the battery so I should be able to get four days from the fan battery and the separate battery. I’ve got two batteries, so that’ll give me a full week and that’s about as long, or longer, as I think I can sit. Should be good to go.
Looks nice should work good. How would you say it is with noise?
On the low setting the fan is real quiet while the mister is a little louder. Shouldn’t bother the animals but I’ll find out. The downside is to shut off the power you’ve got to cycle past the medium and high fan settings which are quite a bit louder than the low setting so if it’s a problem I’ll need to shut it down when the antelope are first seen coming in but as we all know they tend to surprise us.
Sat today for 12 hours and left due to high winds. No way an arrow would’ve hit an animal straight on…. Anyway I used the fan I posted above most of the day. I waited until I started sweating before turning it on and it sure cooled the blind and me down. The fan itself is super quiet on the lowest setting while the mister doesn’t make much noise either. It went through about 20 oz of water over about 7 hours of use. It’s definitely a must have for me going forward for any hot all day blind sit.
Rut Nut, your calling it a “hillbilly” a/c unit is deeply offensive to me ! We call it a “redneck” a/c unit. Damn ! ;-))
I’ve used a fan in my
TideWe VisMaster 270°See-through Blind before during early-season hunts, and it definitely makes a difference when it's hot out. I bought a small, battery-powered fan and rigged it up to the sidewall with some zip ties. It keeps air moving without being too loud. When I’ve had antelope come in, I’ve kept it running, and it didn’t seem to spook them. The key is getting a quiet fan—if it's too noisy, it might ruin the hunt.
LOL! Just saw this dry creek. The guy that posted that link on YouTube was the one who named it, but to me “hillbilly” is actually a term of endearment! In fact, I like it when someone calls me that, or “hick” or “redneck!” ;-)
We built hay bale blinds to hunt out of at our SD lease. My buddy had a fan, Thermacell, and Ozonics going all at once. LOL.
You southern guys crack me up.... this is not a problem I have ever encountered!
Pete